Bring It On! :The bookworm project
by littlemeercat
Summary: Draco tells his friends he can make any girl fall for him. Much to his disappointment they decide to test this theory out on his rival....Hermione Granger! Rules? Don't fall in love...as if that's going to work! Rated just for safety. Ship:HermioneDraco
1. About the Story

**BRING IT ON!**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I also do not own a pizza place. However, my Uncle does, so I'm all good.

Author's Note

Hello everyone. This story is set in the 7th Year of Hogwarts and as I thought of it before Half Blood Prince was released, it carries on like Book 6 never occurred. Sorry. Here is the prologue and some background information about this story. I have not posted the first chapter in this part because otherwise my background stuff would be longer then my story, so I thought I'll post it after.

Prologue 

Draco tells his friends that he could make any girl fall for him. Unfortunately, his fellow slytherin buddies want to test this theory, on whom else but…..Hermione Granger. (NOTE: I solemnly swear that I will finish this fanfic. Even if it takes me a year! I will!)

Background Information 

-One of the only incidents I kept from the books is Dumbledore dying because it was so dramatic (as I've heard). (Note: By the way I haven't read the book yet because I'm saving it but I still know the basic facts)

-Sirius Black is alive! Although we don't hear much from him in this story but come on I had to make my favourite dead character alive! Well the thing is he was sum how retrieved from the horrible mean evil veil, because Bellatrix was pushed into the veil by Hermione. And you like the world works in opposites, so Sirius came out and they destroyed the veil. By the way this is NOT what I think is going to happen or NOT what is going to happen; as unfortunately I am not a seer(someone who can see the future), although I can tell you that I can tell when what's going to happen in Eastenders (by looking at the magazines in the newspapers which have spoilers.

-Also Harry and Hermione are head boy and girl and Harry is quidditch captain as Draco is.

Rating-Rated T because "Shit" can be considered inappropriate as some might others might be. Basically, Just in case.

Pairing-Draco/Hermione

More Information

At the end of every chapter I will provide a template review which you can copy and paste into the review box and fill it out. So that it's easy. I will also have some Bonus features for those who have the time.


	2. 1: Just a normal day

**BRING IT ON!**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. I also do not own a Playstation 2. However, everyone I know does but never mind. I have a normal one, and I only have two games for it! A dance mat thing and Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I'm still happy!

Author's Note

Hello everyone. This is my first actual fanfiction. Although, I did think of another one but I now have decided to start that in like, a year. Feel free to review. Ok, let me be straight with you. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaasssssssseeeeee review or even just leave a word, like good or bad or stupid or carrots. What? I like carrots.

Chapter One: Just a normal day

"Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry!" exclaimed a fuming blonde headed boy. (No prize for guessing who he is). "That's all you hear these days!"

It had been a month since they had returned from the summer holidays and word had spread of Harry Potter's big battle with Lord Voldemort. Harry had killed Lord Voldemort just after the 6th Year had ended and was now never seen alone, as students from all houses (yes including some slytherins) crowded around him. Everybody wanted hear about his great victory; everybody but Draco Malfoy. "I mean what is it about that stupid prick, huh? What is it about the creep that supposedly has overridden me?" Draco asked.

Blaise, Crabbe, Goyle and Draco himself were sitting at the Slytherin table at dinnertime. Draco every now and then glanced towards the Gryffindor table looking at all the attention that was being applied to all Harry.

"Maybe it's because he killed the most evil powerful wizard there ever was, who absolutely everybody feared, all around the world." Goyle replied, being rather proud that he knew the answer to something. Draco gave Goyle a look that could have made a hundred trolls wet themselves.

"That was a rhetorical question, Goyle." Blaise who was sitting opposite Draco said.

"Yeah, and don't listen to Goyle anyway. You have plenty of things you are good at," said Crabbe who seemed to be on a Wise phase.

"Like what?" Goyle asked a bit confused.

"Well, you are good with girls, you can be mean without trying, you can eat a lot and not get fat, you are good at hexing people that are in your way, you can-get whaf yoop wonp" By then Blaise had scoffed a chocolate frog into Crabbe's gob to shut him up. It looked like Crabbe's Wise phase had disappeared as fast as you can say-

"That's it!" Draco said filled with jealousy, "I'm gonna go teach that filthy skunk a lesson!" And before anybody could stop him Draco started to make his way towards the Gryffindor table attempting to fight the crowd that surrounded it. Blaise just sighed knowing he would have to get up to break whatever Draco would start.

Blaise had started to hang around with Draco just at the beginning of the 7th year. Mainly because Draco had no family, as his mum had been killed by Tonks and his dad had been kissed. No not by Tonks but a dementor; he now had no soul. Blaise had a lot in common with Draco because he too was stubborn, snobbish, cruel at times, but he still had a good heart.

Finally, Draco had reached the Gryffindor table and it was also a good thing that it was crowded so that the teachers could not see the table properly. "Well, well, well. If it isn't our favourite hero." Draco said slyly.

"Hello Draco." Harry replied, which had not only stunned Draco, but also the crowd around him.

"How dare you use my first name? That's only for people with class. But class is a foreign word to you and your stupid friends. Strolling around like you own the place…I'm telling you it's pathetic! You're pathetic. Pah you think that you're…." Draco continued to spit humiliations at Harry, while Harry just sat there taking everything that was thrown at him. "You and your mudblood freak of a friend with that constipated Weasle should go take a hike!" Hermione then lunged at Draco to attack him, but Harry held her back. "What are you doing Potter? Stopping your friend from breaking her pweety nails? I wouldn't bother the only thing she'll end up breaking is a rule and we wouldn't want that Granger would we? Draco said horridly. Blaise then pulled Draco away and started to lead Draco and the others out of the Great hall towards the Slytherin common room.

Meanwhile, there was silence at the Gryffindor table when Ron said,

"I'm not constipated!" That then broke the silence and people started to leave the Great hall. The remaining people were trying to cheer Harry up (although he was fine but they felt bad for him).

"Don't worry Harry. We all know that everything Malfoy said was stupid and untrue. Especially the thing about Hermione's nails." A Ravenclaw girl said.

"Hey!" Hermione said in response.

Ron, Harry and Hermione then set off to their dormitories. Ron's was in the usual dormitory; the one that he had stayed in all his years at Hogwarts. However, Harry and Hermione's were separate because they were Head Boy and Head Girl.

Walking into their common room, Hermione asked Harry why he was so subtle with Draco at dinner. Harry just replied, before going to bed "I know what it feels like to lose your parents and quite frankly…it sucks. Good night." Hermione had noticed that Harry had grown up a lot from when she had first met him. This comment had proved it. However, as she got into bed she thought: _Just because Harry has given Malfoy a free pass into his good books does not mean that I am too. _

Hermione was tired. Mainly because people had kept on hanging around with them all day (mainly girls). She shut her eyes and thought again to herself _History of magic tomorrow first thing, and why in the world did Lisa nominate me to be the head leader of our side. Oh well, at least I'll be able to kick Draco's butt. It's going to be sooo……" _And with that, she entered the world of dreams.

However, when Hermione was dreaming of clouds of happiness, another person was having a-

"Nightmare!" screeched Draco. "Potter is such a nightmare!"

Draco, Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle were all sitting alone in the Slytherin common room, around a large burning fire. The tables were quite large with various designs over the ivory base. The Sofa was green with some embroidery on the arm rests. Draco then continued, "I mean first he was just this lousy boy who managed to survive all these death threats, but now he's a lousy boy who managed to kill some power hungry wizard-by chance of course. He's being nice to me because he wants to show everyone that he looks down on me, that I'm lower then him, well he can go kiss a frog. People are crowding around him like he's some sort of God. All the girls are like 'wooooo look at him' it's just so stupid."

"Have you finished your hissy fit?" asked Blaise who was rather amused.

"Hissy fit? Blaise what are you on- fine tell me what _you_ think?" Draco replied.

"I think you're jealous of Potter as-" Blaise said.

"What? No way!" Draco interrupted.

"Yes way. Last year you was popular-especially with the ladies- and now…you're not" Blaise said smiling.

"Yeah, yeah. It'll only be for a bit, Blaise my friend. As girls will come running back to me, once they realize I'm the best thing that ever happened to them. With my charm and good looks, I'm like a golden snitch, every girl wants me." Draco said, all full of himself.

"Theoretically, only the seeker wants you, not everyone." Blaise said cheekily.

"Shut up. I know I can make any girl, anywhere, fall for me." Draco said confidently, although it only seemed to him that Blaise was listening, because Crabbe was seeing how many biscuits he could fit into his mouth, while Goyle seemed to be asleep. All of a sudden, Crabbe yelled "Poov ihp." Making his presence known and also waking Goyle up.

"Yeah. Why don't we put your little theory to the test, Draco?"

"A bet?" asked Draco questionably.

"A bet." Confirmed Blaise. "I challenge you, Draco Malfoy, that if you can make a girl-of my choice, of course- fall for you then I will give you a hundred galleons." Blaise said smiling again.

"What are the terms?" Draco asked.

"As I said before, I get to choose the girl, no telling her about the bet, no stupid potions or charms on her….and-" Blaise paused.

"And?" asked Crabbe and Goyle, now in the swing of things.

"And to win the bet you have to seal it with a kiss." Blaise finished.

"Uhhhhkkkkkk, Blaise… I'm not that kind of guy!" Draco said a little taken aback.

"Not me, Draco! You have to get the girl to kiss you, of her free will, you plonker!" Blaise said, once he realised what Draco was thinking.

"Oh right." Draco said quickly.

"One more thing" Blaise said, "You have to do it by the end of the Christmas dance."

"No problem! So who's the girl?" Draco said rather tired.

Blaise leaned back and rested his head on the green velvet armchair that he was sitting on, in order to think. "What about Pansy?" Draco said impatiently.

"Nah. She's a ready to cook eat meal. We need someone a bit more raw. She's too…. clingy." Blaise replied.

"Ok…how about….ummm…Hannah Abbot?" asked Draco.

"Taken." Blaise replied immediately.

"Mandy Brocklehust?"

"Too snobbish. A bit like you, Draco, actually."

"Laura Madley?"

"Too Young."

"Lavender Brown?"

"Too sympathetic."

"Parvati Patil?"

"Too stupid."

"What has that got to do with anything?" Draco asked, but Blaise ignored him so Draco continued.

"Amanda Cross?"

"Too easy." Blaise replied smiling.

"Too easy? Blaise what have you been up to?" Draco asked, before he was interrupted.

"I've got it!" Blaise said raising his index finger. "Our victim gentlemen…" he told the other 3. "Is none other then Draco's favourite person….Hermione Granger."

Draco's jaw dropped.

There was silence.

"Shit." Draco said more to himself then the others.

"What's wrong, Draco? Scared of a challenge?" Blaise asked.

"What do you expect me to say? 'Oh woohoooo. Hermione Granger, my bestest friend ever since I came here' I highly doubt it. I mean COME ON Granger? She hates my guts _and_ vice versa. How exactly do you expect me to erase 6 years of hate from her memory, with only a couple of months?" Draco replied.

"You said _any_ girl." Blaise said, now confident that he was going to win the bet. "Unless, of course, you want to back out now?"

"Shut Up. But I'm going to make an adjustment to the terms. First, we double the stakes. Second, the loser has to be the winners slave for the remaining time left after the bet is won." Draco said, now a bit more confidently.

"Deal." Confirmed Blaise, "But I warn you. Betting with me is dangerous. You'll lose. There's no way Granger will fall for you."

"Where there's a Draco theirs a way." Draco spat. "Bring it on."

END OF CHAPTER ONE

Author's Note

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this story. Pleeaaaase review and I know it can sometimes be a bit of a drag, but you can just even leave a word. A word, that's all I'm asking for, people. Just to make reviewing easier, here's a template you might want to use in your reviews:

**Review Template:** (you can just write a little word or comment next to each bit):

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If you would like me to reply to your review then please leave your e-mail.

Ok, thanks a ton for reading my chappie and I'll leave with you some Special Features. (By the way you don't have to read the Special features as it's just a bit of stuff I put in so that people who think my chapters are too short can read more.)

Special Features

Hello everyone, who has entered into my special features bit. This is not spam and has got to do with Harry Potter and my story, so don't fret.

Behind the scenes

In order to spell out the sound of "Prove it" which Crabbe said with his mouth full of biscuits, I stuffed my fist in my mouth in my mouth and said "Prove it" which came out as what we all know and love: "Poov Ihp."

Deleted Extracts 

"Blaise Zabini had only started to hang around with Draco and company at the beginning of the 7th Year. Probably because Draco Malfoy's mother had died in the war, and he had felt sorry for him. It could also have been because Draco Malfoy's dad, Lucius Malfoy had been taken by the dementors and his soul had been sucked out. Blaise Zabini was a very kind and thoughtful person, who was bit cranky a times."

Why did I not put this in the story? Well the answer is in the extract. This extract shows Blaise as a really kind and loving person which would be weird if he basically tells Draco that he has been overtake by Harry. It is also very boring and a bit stupid.

Extras Please 

As you have noticed I used most of the names from the books as students as my disclaimer says everything is J.K Rowling's. However, I still need extras to be in my story and they will be put into the disclaimer too. If you want your name in this story then e-mail me at and leave a real name and gender.

I can't make the special features too long as it may be considered as spam and it may be reported (Please tell me if I broke any rules before reporting if you do think I happen to do something wrong).

End Note

Thanks for reading this chappie.


	3. The Bookworm project

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. All the characters in his fanfiction are J.K.Rowlings apart from Roleena Kashka and Yumi who are extras and also some random name called Regan. . I also do not own the content of fantastic beasts and where to find them, which J.k.Rowling wrote too. I don't seem to own much do I? Ah well I better go back to writing my fanfic.

Author's Note

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for the reviews, but rather then replying by e-mail (but request it if you want to be e-mailed) I have decided to make a webpage with all my comments to your reviews. Please e-mail me or write in your review if you want a response please. Once again I would like to say thank you sooooooooooooo much to those who reviewed my last chapter and was honest. I took all your comments and tried to make my story better. If you want a question answered about my story then you can write it in a review. I will probably answer it in the special features section. Sorry by the way if you got more then one e-mail alert message because I had some technical difficulties with posting it. But it's all good now. Also sorry for the long note

Well here goes.

Chapter Two: The Bookworm Project

It had big round black eyes, and it was extremely furry. He tried to escape, but he was cornered. The giant ferret was closing up on Draco. Then it opened its horrible slobbering mouth and said……"Pancake."

"Nooooooooooo. I'm not a pancake. Don't eat me!" Draco pleaded. It repeated over and over again the word "pancake." Well at least it sounded like pancake, but then it started to turn into something different, but the ending was similar. The mysterious word became louder, then the giant ferret reached towards Draco, who shut his eyes wishing it was all a-

"WAKE UP!" Goyle exclaimed loudly shaking Draco. Draco opened his eyes halfway and this was bad! The nightmare had come true…..oh no..wait… it was just Goyle. Draco sat up on his fine green bed, rubbed his eyes and looked around him. The dormitory looked normal , with its beds purched up against the dark concrete walls.

"Phweh." Draco told himself. "No ferret. No pancakes."

"Pancakes?" Crabbe beamed, "Where?"

"Quick Draco." Goyle said from the end of Draco's bed. "You already missed breakfast-we did try and wake you up but we thought you weren't sure if you were alive, so we left you- also we're gonna be a late for History of magic."

"Oh shit!" Draco shouted, "The debate!" Then he ran around the dormitory getting all his school things together. "I swear a ferret should be the symbol for the grim, not a bloody dog." Draco thought out loud.

"Why a ferret?"asked Crabbe.

"Oh nothing. I had this dream where…I killed this ferret with a sword, given to me by Salazar slytherin." Draco lied.

"I once had a dream about a ferret." Said Goyle dreamily. "It was flapping around and people were laughing at it in the background."

"Goyle, you plonker! That was true!" Draco shouted now even more annoyed.

Draco now went behind a milky green blind to change.

"Hey how many lessons do I have with Granger today?" Draco said from behind the blind.

Goyle went to Draco's trunk and on it was his timetable. Draco had already highlighted the classes with a magical green highlighter.

"Well, you have…Hiisssttoory oof maaaagiiic." Goyle said.

"I know that doofus!" Draco scowled, "What about the others?"

"You also have….Care of magical creatures….and potions." Finished Goyle.

"In a matter of days Granger will be all over me. Trust me…I've got this all worked out in a simple plan….It'll work like a charm." Draco said, but then added "Not literally," before you said 'no magic'. He walked in front of the blind and grabbed his school bag. "Well, come on then!" Draco said impatiently, "I've got a debate to win!"

"He's late!" exclaimed Hermione.

It had been ten minutes and there had been no sign of Draco and his gang. (Blaise hand't taken History of magic.) On the board was written 'History of magic is very vital to our development as wizards.' The 'for' (Hermione's side) side was sitting at the left hand side of the classroom and on the right hand side were the 'against' side. "I think we should start the debate without Malfoy." Hermione said irritably, "If he hasn't turned up now then that isn't particularly fair on the rest of the class."

"No." said Professor Binns. "He is the leader and spokesperson of your opposing side, so to make the debate fair….we'll wait. Oh speak of the devil." She said looking up. Hermione turned around. Draco-with Crabbe and Goyle with him- had a smug grin on his face, as he went and sat down with his team. Hermione did the same and stood up with notes from her side. Harry and Ron were sitting next to her mouthing 'Go Hermione, go Hermione.'

"You may start Miss Granger." Said Professor Binns.

"Thank you. Why do we need to learn History of magic?" Hermione started. "Throughout years wizards and witches have taught us what we now know today. Thanks to History we have been able to find out things that we now take for granted. We have learned from their mistakes and corrected our own..." Hermione then sat allowing Ron to speak.

"Numerous events from the past have taught us a lot. For example:" Ron said.

"The first war." Said Yumi.

"Regan the Mighty's battle with the bloodsucking Erumpent." Caitlin Morton, a Gryffindor with brown hair stated.

"Even in our own school we found out from history that the chamber of secrets was open by the same person who opened it 50 years before." Somebody said before she was interrupted.

"That was Harry, not history." Ron blurted out and Hermione shot him an angry glance.

"Even in the non-magical world history is important. Think of World war One all the Henry's." Harry said, with all those history lessons in primary school coming in help.

"So" Hermione said standing up again. It is not whether we want history in our lives, but it is whether we need it….Thank you." And with that she sat down.

It was now Draco's turn to talk, but the truth was he had really not worked hard on his points. He was planning on leaving it till the morning but as we all know he had woken up late.

"Mr Malfoy. If you please." Professor Binns insisted. Draco stood up with the piles of paper from his team, crumpling in his hands. He hadn't even had a chance to read them through…he had to play it by ear.

"Well." Draco started. "Well my team is against this hypothesis and um….so I'm going to oppose it."

"Oh no, this is going to centuries. He's only just figured out what he's doing" whispered Hermione to Caitlin, when Draco shuffled through his papers.

"Here's another more recent example then yours. I was set transfiguration homework from Professor Trelawney. I couldn't be bother- I mean I_ forgot_ to do it and got detention. A week later I made the same mistake. Did I learn from my mistake? No."

"You're gonna need more then that." Laughed Hannah.

"Fine….um…Was it not true that in …um the first war nobody knew that in order to kill You-know-who, you had to destroy his horcruxes. So a big help history was there!" Draco said, now knowing how to continue his speech.

"Well, as far as I'm concerned I think he should have learned that all women are the same."

"And didn't it even occur to you that Regan may not have killed that Erumpent. He was alone, his friend had been strangled by Devil's snare and he had nothing to eat. Did it not hit anyone that rather then being a hero, he could have killed his friend with poison then encouraged the Erumpent to eat his friend. Could it not have been that the Erumpent had been killed not by a wand but old fashion poison? After all didn't the natives say he was not harmed externally and Regan had already lost his wand by then. History is not completely reliable. In conclusion… what do we learn from History? Nothing. "

Hermione looked shocked. Had she just be beaten by… Draco Malfoy? Even professor Binns seemed to be a bit awestruck. _Come on Hermione…think! _Hermione told herself.

"What about muggle history?" Hermione said still shocked.

"Even with muggle history, they had The first world war then ten years later they had another one! Henry 8th married 5 women-"

"Six." corrected Hermione trying to catch Draco out.

"Same thing." Replied Draco, "Well anyways he married 6 women…wow six girls he must have been a-"

"Carry on!" Whispered somebody on Draco's side.

"Well yeah. But didn't he learn that six women would mean a lot of trouble. I mean I admire him for trying." Draco said.

"Get to your point." Hermione said.

"Well, come on. Imagine getting married once, then it going wrong, then marrying again. But this guy did walked down the isle 6 times! He sure didn't learn from his mistakes!" Draco said.

"Henry the 8th had his reasons." A Ravenclaw said from Hermione's side.

"What? The fact that they were all girls? Even now girls are tricky to deal with. I mean look at the mudblood….oh crap." Draco said now realising his mistake.

"What me?" Hermione said standing up. "At least I can look in the mirror and be true to myself. You just go around like you own the place and …"

"and?" Draco said, egging Hermione on.

"And you're just-"Hermione said stuck for words.

"Alright now ,you two. Settle down. Let's call it a day." Professor Binns said getting up.

"Wait I want to hear this." Draco said forgetting about the bet.

"Fine!" Hermione spat walking towards Draco. "You are nothing. You care for nobody and nobody cares for you. You're zilch. Nothing. Nada." This made Draco angry.

"Now it's my turn." Draco said. While Crabbe and Goyle were muttering 'bet, bet' in the background, but Draco did not hear. He started to shout into Hermione's face while she held her head up high squinting her eyes as if trying out if she had powers that could turn Draco into stone.

"Hey!" Ron said coming to Hermione's defence, "So what if she's a bit of a bookworm." A Hufflepuff girl, on Draco's team, called Amy got up and said, "Yeah, unlike you who can't even afford books."

"Don't talk to him like that!" Hannah Jobling, Ron's new girlfriend said"**Rictusempra." She shouted. The Hufflepuff girl ended up uncontrollably laughing on the floor and tripping Draco up from where he was standing. Within seconds the Havoc broke out; the whole class was in a big crowd in the middle of the classroom arguing, pushing and shouting at each other. Professor Binns pointed his wand in the air and said, "Relashio" A combination of blue and purple sparks flew out silencing the class.**

Then Professor Binns said "We will vote next lesson. Miss Granger and Mr Malfoy. A detention next week Wednesday. Class dismissed."

The class then left for their next lesson, all apart from Harry, Ron, Hermione, Draco, Goyle and Crabbe. Proffesor Binns had also left for the staff room, probably needing a cup of tea and a chair.

Hermione was still shocked. How could Draco have made a better argument then her? Draco was the stupid one. He thought the **Confundus **Charm was when somebody made fungus grow from your toenails.

"Shut up, Malfoy." Hermione said now rather annoyed. "You probably just made it up as you went along!"

"Well it worked didn't it?" Draco replied. "Anyway, it was a good debate. Well done." Then Draco did something he had never done in his life. He put his hand out to gesture a handshake remembering he would have to make peace sometime in order to win the bet. Which he forgot about in his little outburst.

_How dare he mock me?_ Hermione thought. _I'll get him back. _Then Hermione dragged Harry and Ron out of the classroom.

"So you got anything worked out, for this bet thing?" Crabbe asked Draco.

"Of course! You didn't think I was going to play it by ear, did you?" Draco replied.

"You can play things with your ear?" Goyle said amazed.

"What? No….look I might need your help to win this bet. But ONLY for small things. Don't go thinking you're the mastermind of my win…when of course I win." Draco paused. "Then again you guys wouldn't really be a mastermind of much."

"So what you gonna do?" asked Goyle.

They set of towards the entrance hall.

"Well, my genius plan has five different steps.-The first is to get to know the Victim a.k.a. Granger. Then once we know enough about her -which won't be too hard as we've known each other 6 years- I'll go onto the next step: Impressing the girl. All I have to do then is to show her that I am in fact, very talented and interesting to be with. Then for the third part of my plan-" Draco paused. Crabbe and Goyle weren't even listening, probably because they didn't understand a thing he was saying. "Then the third part of my plan will be to stand on the Slytherin table at dinner, and sing Mary had a little lamb."

"Lamb, where?" Goyle said at the same time as Crabbe's stomach.

"Uhhhhhh. Nothing, but just do what I tell you and everything will run smoothly. Although, today didn't go to well I've decided to keep my cool. But we need a codename for this operation of mine. So that Granger and Blaise won't know what we're talking about. Something not obvious. Something cool. Something with style. Something like-"

"Operation Hermione." Goyle said, like it was the best thing since sliced bread.

"Oh yeah and Granger will not suspect a thing." Draco said sarcastically. "You idiot, we might as well put banners up in the great hall, with full information on the bet! Then people might want to help me!"

"Yeah! Then we'll win the bet!" Crabbe said fascinated with this idea.

"Sarcasm is a foreign language to you isn't it" Draco muttered.

"I know! How about mission pixygeteretter!" Crabbe asked. What? Give him some credit. His brain cell gets a little lonely at times Draco just gave up on his fellow Slytherins. Wait he had it…it.. was coming to him….how about-

"The bookworm project." Draco said satisfied.

They had now reached the Entrance hall and this is where they had to split. "Well, I'm going to put the plan into action in some of my lessons, while you guys find out from Potter and Weasel where the mudblood is hanging around at lunch."

And with that they separated, Draco going to Care of magical creatures and the other two heading towards their Charms classroom. He knew that he had blown it but all the more he knew he had to make up for his outburst.

"The bookworm project will succeed. Draco Malfoy is back and badder then ever. And I've got 2 months. How hard can it be?" He said to himself as he walked towards Hagrid's hut.

Everybody was starting to take their "Fantastic Beasts and where to find them" books out when Draco got there. He went and sat next to Hermione at the back. Luckily, the class were too engrossed in their own things to notice. However, some people did turn back and point at Draco, but he just sat there quiet waiting for Hermione to say something, but she seemed to be giving him the silent treatment (which he found the most annoying thing _ever_).

"O.K now class. Turn to page 22 in your books, please." said Hagrid who was now their teacher for the rest of the year. "Can somebody please read-yes you Miss Bell.-about the Jarvey"

"The Jarvey is found in Britain, Ireland and North America. It resembles an overgrown ferret…" Katie read.

"Oooo…look Malfoy you're in a book." Hermione said, not being able to help herself.

"Ha ha, very amusing." Draco said trying to keep his temper down. "So Gr..Hermione."

Hermione looked at him suspiciously. Whatever Draco was intending to do had to be bad. He had never really called her by her first name. He was up to something. And whatever it was, it didn't sound good. Perhaps he was thinking of a way to get revenge after the debate. She had recovered from it, but it looked like he still wanted meat.

"Look what do you want? I think you should go back to your stupid Slytherin buddies and leave me alone." Hermione said. "And bug off!"

"I'm sorry about our last lesson. That was very…um…immature of me. I was just going to ask if you needed help with your Herbology homework." Draco said trying to break the tension.

"Firstly, just because you happened to do better in a debate, does NOT mean that you are clever enough to do my homework! And secondly, I don't take Herbology!" Then Hermione got up and went to sit next to Roleena Kashka who was writing notes down.

For the rest of the lesson Hermione kept on giving Draco evil looks and Draco spent most of the class thinking of how he was going to carry out the next part of the bookworm project. _Girls are a mystery_ Draco thought. _I thought the mudblood would be impressed if I beat her at something. Obviously not._

Finally lunch had come and Draco's reliable sources a.k.a Crabbe and Goyle had informed him that Hermione was going to the library. So there he was, walking in and out of the labyrinth of bookshelves looking for the bookworm we all know and love; when suddenly he found her sitting at one of the tables.

"Time to put Phase one into action." Draco told himself. He grabbed the nearest book to him and went and sat opposite Hermione. She just looked up and her face dropped.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked opening the book he had taken.

"Water skiing." Hermione replied, then when she saw the puzzled expression on Draco's face she said, "Reading! It's a library, what else do you expect me to be doing?"

"Reading, really? Me too!" Draco said enthusiastically, trying not to shout 'MUDBLOOD' into Hermione's face.

"Shut up." Hermione said and looked down at what Draco was reading.

The book was called '101 ways to threaten or hit a house elf'. Even Draco looked down at his book and knew he was in for it.

"Do you know what house elves go through?" Hermione started. "They punish themselves for their masters, when all they do is speak their mind! It's atrocious how people think that they aren't worth a sickle, and they are living things too!"

"But I didn't-" Draco said.

"And also did you know how many times a house elve gets beaten a day? No you don't! But I wouldn't expect you to understand. You just think 'cause you're a…."

"I really don't-"

"Then there's the fact that you're an antagonistic, egotistical, malevolent moron who doesn't give a stuff about anyone but themselves!" Hermione finished.

"Hi Draco." Crabbe and Goyle called from behind.

"Oh hey." Draco said trying to hide his look of dissatisfaction. "What are you guys doing here?"

"We were late for class so our teacher told us to help madam Pince with some stuff." Goyle replied.

Draco was about to go when he spotted the pile of books she had forgotten on the table, he realised something; they were books on NEWTs and charms, but the one at the bottom was small and red and it was a book was about…poetry.

"So the mudblood starting to take a liking to poetry eh?" Draco said smiling. Then he turned and

said, "Gentlemen, get ready for phase two."

END OF CHAPTER TWO

Author's Note

Thanks, if you survived that chapter which happened to be a bit longer then the last. If you would like to use a template then feel free to use the one on the previous page. Review if you have time or just e-mail me at if you would like me to reply to your review straight away.

Special Features

Hey! This is not spam and has got to do with Harry Potter and my story, so don't worry. I would also like to say do not read the special features if you think they are annoying as this is just something in case anybody wants more an in-site into the story.

Behind the scenes

Hello in today's behind the scenes I'm going to tell you a bit about the characters behaviour in this and the previous chapter.

**Draco Malfoy:** As you guys can see Draco's less dim in this one, even if he does have his outbursts. He was incredibly childish in the first one because his parents have gone and that's the way that I made him deal with it. In this chapter you see at the beginning in his dream which is _really _childish. Then by the end he's all confident and geared up. Draco see's the bet as a way to regain his mental security.

**Harry Potter:**A lot of you thought that Harry was out of character when he did nothing about Draco's comments. This is my way of telling you guys that come on! He's been through a LOT of stuff! Now he's grown up and doesn't care what Draco does because he's defeated one of the most evil wizards that ever lived, right? I doubt he's going to worry about Draco calling him names.

**Hermione Granger: **Imagine being the cleverest person in your school/year. Then imagine being beaten by your all time rival who had the IQ of a peanut. You wouldn't be happy would you? Hermione also hates Draco for him being him. In this chappie she's more angry and louder.

NOTE: THIS IS MYCOMMENTS AND I DON'T OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS.

Deleted Extracts 

**After Hermione's Library burst out:**

This made Draco angry.

"Shut up…you filthy mudblood!" Draco shouted, now releasing the steam that was building up in his head. Hermione just looked straight into his eyes, with pure detest for him and steamed off. _Crap _Draco thought when he had calmed down. _Why wasn't Madam Pince here to shut her up. Otherwise I wouldn't have blown up. _But there was still hope. At least he now knew that Hermione was a _very_ strong believer in giving house-elves justice, and also the fact that she couldn't get enough of books.

I decided to take this out because I put the first debate fight in. the end but was a bit extra.

Credits

-Everybody who reviewed and read.

-J.K Rowling for creating a cool world.

- Roleena Kashka and Yumi for being extras.

-Last but not least my best friends Hannah and Lisa for being themselves and putting up with my constant nattering.

End Note

Thanks for reading this chappie. (Sorry, I need to get out more, I am soooo annoying)


	4. Draco's Detour

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. Only the plot is mine. Actually, many people have plots where Draco is having a bet involving Hermione. Great.

People affected by Hurricane Katrina

I just wanted to say that I'm thinking of everyone and hope you guys are all ok. God bless. sorry its late but this chapter was under a lot of editing

Author's Note

Well hello anybody reading this. I hope you liked my last chappie but I have some confessions to make. There were various mistakes in the post even though I deleted it and reposted it a couple of time (last chappie). So if you got like a million alert messages in your inbox or junk mail then I am incredibly sorry. I am a dim moron and I admit it. Even when I posted it, there was still a line in the middle of nowhere! Also there was bold text in mid sentence which I didn't put there so I just panicked and went crazy. I still don't know how to get rid of it but yeah…I stink. Anyway enough of me feeling sorry for myself, and lets get down to the story.

Also as you might have noticed I extended the title.

Chapter Three: Draco's Detour

Draco slipped out of bed, got ready and ran to the great hall, with a piece of 'phase two' in his hand. He had written it out the night before and was very pleased with himself. _The mudblood won't know what hit her._ He thought.

In the Great hall, students were getting ready for lunch and many 7th years were stressing over their coming exams, with piles of books across their house tables. There was somebody sitting on their own, up to their head in books.

Draco looked around and saw Crabbe and Goyle sitting at the Slytherin table with Blaise; not studying.

"Hey." Draco said sitting next to Goyle. "What's up with this lot?"

"Studying for their N.E.W.T.s" Replied Blaise. "Anyway. I just thought I'd let you know that rumours are going around about a certain History of Magic lesson you were in yesterday."

"What rumours?" Draco asked drinking water from a small cup. At that moment a Ravenclaw first year came up their table and asked Draco:

"Is it true you told Hermione Granger that she was an ugly beast? Then made a book levitate over her head, then dropped it on her? "

Draco spat out his water onto Crabbe who was sitting opposite him.

"Is it true that you killed her?" Another first year asked.

"No!" Draco said half shocked, half amazed at what people came up with.

"Then where is she?" Goyle asked accusingly.

"She's behind that big jungle of books! And anyway you were there. Goyle you idiot!" Draco said annoyed.

"Oh right." Goyle said quietly.

"Looks like putting your money where your mouth was, wasn't such a good thing to do." Blaise smirked..

"I've still got two months left." Draco assured -himself as well as the others- in a low voice so only Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle could hear him. "Anyways gentlemen……watch this." He got up and walked to the Gryffindor table where Hermione was quietly studying in her big heap of books.

"Hi Hermione." Draco said smiling, in what he called a friendly manner. Unfortunately, Hermione wasn't interested because she got up and started to pile up her books. "Going somewhere?"

"Yes. I'm going somewhere where certain 'murderers' like yourself won't annoy me" Hermione replied.

"Hey I did _not_ spread that rumour!" Draco said to his defence. "I just found out now."

"Yeah?" Hermione said not convinced, piling all her books up. "Next thing we know people will probably spread around the fact that _I_ got beaten by _you_."

Draco got 'Hogwarts a history' and slipped the piece of paper he had carried into it. He then placed it on top of the pile of books Hermione was carrying.

"You read _that_?" Draco asked, astonished that the book hadn't already been put in the restricted section of the library, _because you could die of boredom_ Draco had once told Blaise.

"Yes." Hermione asked. "I'm guessing it's not up to your usual standards." Hermione added mockingly.

"Dam right, it's not." Draco said and when he saw the expression on Hermione's face he slowly added. "It….more..then meets..my expectations."

"You've read it?" Hermione asked surprised.

"Yeah." Draco lied. "It's really…good."

"Then what's your favourite section?" Hermione said testing him.

"Ummmm….It's really hard to choose." Draco said rolling his eyes. "I think I like the bit about the..um..pixie in the chamber of secrets. Yeah…yeah….definitely my favourite bit."

"Pixies? Yeah, right." Hermione said sarcastically and turned with all her books and work piled up, so you couldn't see her face.

"Well bye then." Draco said watching Hermione struggle over the books, when she walked out of the Great hall. He could have helped her carry the books, but decided it would have been funnier watching her struggle.

"Well that went well." Said Blaise mockingly.

"Yes it did," Draco said and when Blaise looked at him confused, he said "I did the old family trick: The Malfoy slip-it-into-a-book technique and any minute, Granger will turn softer. It's only a matter of weeks until she falls at my feet."

SLAM!

"Oh my god, Hermione. Are you ok?" asked Harry.

"I'm fine." Hermione said getting up and collecting all her books, which were scattered around the bottom of the stairs, in the Gryffindor common room. "It's just I couldn't see properly."

"Well no wonder! If those books fell on top of you, they would have killed you! A bit like Malfoy." Ron said laughing.

"Very funny." Hermione said not looking the least happy. "Anyway it's just a rumour… Hey what's this?" Hermione put all her books down on a chair near the fireplace, and went back to where she had dropped the books.

Lying on the floor was a very peculiar looking parchment, folded into some type of bird shape, which was flapping its wings. She kneeled down, picked it up and unfolded it. There in green ink was some kind of writing.

Immediately, Ron snatched it out of Hermione's hand and started to read it

"Dear Hermione my only one

You make my insides want to run

You're like your cat, all bushy and scary

Your skin is soft but sometimes hairy

I like it how you're always reading books

Shame about your dodgy looks

Your laugh is like a mandrakes scream

You remind me of strawberries and cream

You're like a veela or angel instead

That's why you make me feel pretty much dead.

I look at you whenever you pass

Dam right you've got a fine ar-"

"Give me that!" Hermione said snatching the parchment. Harry and Ron both jumped on the sofa, and bursted with laughter.

"Looks like somebody sent Hermione a loooove letter." Ron teased and started to giggle again.

"Shut up, Ronald." Said Hermione.

"I got a love letter once," Harry said, looking back at Ginny who was sitting on a soft red chair. "And I know that, that's a love letter."

"Love letter? Yeah, sure. It looks like somebody's got it in for me, instead!" Hermione exclaimed. "And I think I know who."

"Malfoy?" Ron asked, "Fat chance. He's probably too busy looking in the mirror or something."

"Well, whoever it is is bound to try something else. And when they do, I'll be ready." Hermione said. "Anyway I've got to go and put these books in our common room, Harry. And then go to my potions lesson. What about you guys?"

"We've got a free period." Harry and Ron said.

"Free periods? What is the world coming to?" And with that Hermione picked up her books and went out the common room.

Ron turned to Harry.

"So me and Hannah are going to Hogsmeade on Saturday." Ron said munching a chocolate frog. "You wanna come?"

"I don't think that's a good idea." Ginny said getting up from the corner. "Hermione probably feels like the fifth wheel when we all go out."

"Well, it's not our fault Hermione hasn't found anyone, is it?" Ron asked. "And anyway who said you could come?"

"Me." said Harry putting his arm around Ginny's waist. "And I better go see McGonagall."

"About what?" asked Ron.

"Nothing much." Harry said and left the common room.

The wind was blowing strongly, deforming anything that came in its way. Leaves flew around the Hogwarts Lake and birds fought the wind trying to get back to their families. A rollercoaster of events were occurring outside in the autumn weather, and Draco Malfoy was sitting inside near the window, boring himself to-

"Death." Snape said. "If you do not do good in your exams, sooner or later you will die. It's true." He turned his back on all the horrified faces, including a hufflepuff girl who started to choke. "Now can anybody tell me what ingredients you need for a wit-sharpening potion?" Hermione raised her hand eager to answer the question.

_Bloody bookworm._ _Always has to be the brain. _Malfoy thought.

"Fine. Miss Granger if you must." Snape said turning around.  
"In order to create a reliable wit-sharpening potion, you must put in scarab beetles, ginger roots and armadillo bile. This potion, if made correctly, will sharpen the thoughts of a person and make them think better. Jamie Torreh used it once in 1892 to help his friend-"

"That's all Miss Granger." Snape butted in.

Malfoy scowled, _If only I knew what she liked. Hmmm…maybe I could perform legilmency on her. Oh no…..no magic and anyway I can't even get it right. I'll probably end up reading her bloody cat's thoughts. _

"Ok now class. Today I am going to allocate you a partner, for you to do a presentation with. You must BOTH do the work."

Professor Snape walked to Draco, "And Mr Malfoy, your partner will be Mr Cra-"

"HckkhhHermione." Draco said coughing.

"Miss Granger?" Snape said quickly, a little confused.

"Me?" Hermione said shocked.

"Yes you." Snape declared.

"But that's not-" Hermione started.

"Don't question my authority Miss Granger." Snape snapped and walked around the class partnering everybody with people they didn't particularly like.

"Now everybody! Get with your partners and start discussing what potion you are going to use in your presentation. Remember that this presentation will be 20 of your final mark. You will have only next lesson to carry out the practical and then you can present it to the rest of the class on Friday." Has everybody got that noted?" Snape asked.

Everybody started to fiddle around writing quick notes down.

"Now go to your partners." Snape snapped and the students pushed into each other trying to get to their temporary seats. Draco got up and sat next to Hermione -so that she wouldn't have to move.

"Hello study buddy!" Draco said enthusiastically.

"Please don't talk to me." Hermione said as though Draco was a small boy. "Now, we can't finish the preparations for the presentation in just the lessons available. That would be impossible, so I have a simple study schedule. Meet me tomorrow in the library at lunch and break, and the same for the day after-"

"But-" Draco said.

"Shut up. And I won't be able to work on the actual day because I have some important work to do, so we'll have to do bits at our own common rooms. I don't care if you don't get much sleep but we have to get good marks. It's not 10...no….it's _20_"

Hermione took out a book called 'Magical drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger' Draco started to laugh and Hermione stared at him seeing nothing funny.

"He's called ARSenius Jigger. Hehehehe" Draco giggled.

"Boys." Hermione muttered. "Can't live with them, can't kill them."

She opened the big book she had read in her first year. "Shhhh I'm trying to read! We have a ridiculous amount of time so it wouldn't hurt to be a _bit_ serious." Draco quietened down his immature laugh.

"Now we can do this one here Confusing Concoction. I was first thinking the polyjuice potion but that would take ages. Ok?" Hermione asked.

Silence

"Hello? Wizarding World to Malfoy." Hermione asked.

"You told me not to say anything." Draco said cheekily. "All right. I like your idea, but I think we should do a more interesting potion."

"Uh huh?" Hermione asked. "Like what?"

"Like the Felix Felicis or the Forgetfulness Potion." Draco said happily.

"Are you nuts?" Hermione asked furiously. "The forgetfulness potion will make you forget that you're even being assessed! And don't even get me started on Felix Felicis! You'll just get lucky with the marking and that would be cheating!"

"Fine, fine! Let's have it your way!" Draco said fed up.

For the rest of the lesson Hermione was telling Draco what sections he would have to handle and around how many words he would have to write it in. She even lent him her copy of 'Magical drafts and Potions' because he had lost his in the 4th year.

At the end of the lesson Draco was so tired that he was the last person in the class apart from him, Crabbe and Goyle.

"That was very clever of you." Goyle said.

"I know." Draco replied. "I'm a saint."

"Yeah! I wish I thought of it!" Crabbe beamed.

"You?" Draco asked confused.

"Yeah that way I would have got good grades too!" Crabbe answered.

"No goobrain! It's because he wants to get free doughnuts from the Gryffindor common room." Goyle replied seriously.

"I need to lie down." Draco replied. "I'll see you guys at dinner after my detee"

"Hm hmmm hmmm hmmm hmmmmmmmm." Draco hummed.

"Shut up would you? We're supposed to be in a detention here! And the least you can do is to shut the hell up!" Hermione burst out, really fed up from listening to Draco hum for over an hour. "I'm trying to do my potions_ and_ Arithmacy at the same time!"

Hermione and Draco were sitting at different tables in their History of Magic class-Hermione on the left and Draco on the right- waiting for Professor Binns to return. Because Hermione was in the detention, Professor Binns trusted her to behave; therefore he had gone to the staff room. Unfortunately, Draco wasn't as mature as Hermione.

"Ok then." Draco replied and stared at Hermione. He wasn't sure exactly how to break the thick ice between them, but decided to become nicer and nicer each day, otherwise Hermione would have sussed something out.

Hermione looked up from her work.

"Would you quit staring at me!" Hermione exclaimed.

"You told me not to say anything." Draco said cheekily.

"Fine, just do what you want but don't bug me."

"Hermione can I ask you something?" asked Draco.

"If you must." Hermione said

"What's this?" Draco asked; holding a piece of folded paper in his left hand. Although, he knew perfectly well, exactly what it was.

"Hey where did you get that?" Hermione said getting up.

"It was in that potions book you lent me." Draco replied.

Hermione remembered stuffing it into one of her books before going off to her common room.

"Yeah well. It's just some idiot sending me threatening bits of parchment."

_Oh crap_ _She was supposed to be impressed. Ok so I'm not that good at literature. _Draco thought. _Good thing I left it anonymous._

"Uh huh? Well if you want, I'll sort him out."

"How do you know it's a boy?" Hermione asked.

"I doubt a girl would comment on your butt, unless there was something wrong with her. But then even if a boy said that about your butt, he would have to be insane or blind." Draco joked and when he saw the expression on Hermione's face he added. "And…the ink looks…boyish."

"Since when have you been an ink expert?"

"Since I beat you at a particular debate….I mean…by chance…." Draco said trying to redeem himself.

"The results haven't even been counted yet. Professor Binns will count them next lesson." Hermione said.

"Next lesson?" Draco thought. That gave him an idea, unfortunately a very risky one.

The rest of the detention included Hermione giving sharp glances at Draco, and Draco trying to do his Potions work.

Finally, Professor Binns returned after about half an hour.

"Good to see you two…erm….getting along." Professor Binns said. "I think its time, so you may go now."

"Thank you professor." Hermione said gathering her things and putting them in a small bag. Both Hermione and Draco started for the door, when Professor Binns said, "And remember that I do not want to see you two starting another feud again. Do you understand me?"

"Yes Professor." Both Hermione and Draco said.

"Very well then." Professor Binns concluded and with that, Hermione and Draco rushed through the doors eager to get to dinner.

"No seriously. Malfoy is really worrying me." Hermione said. She was sitting in the Great Hall with Harry and Ron. There was a whole variety of food today, with salads, side meals and a huge chicken on all five tables.

"So let me get this straight." Harry said, while Ron scoffed his face with chicken. "Mal.. Draco-sorry old habit- is not calling you a mudblood, smirking in the way he does and basically being nice to you. And…you're complaining?"

"It's suspicious. It's strange. It's not Malfoy!" Hermione stated.

"Maybe he secretly loves you and is too afraid to admit his true feelings." Ron said laughing.

"Ha ha. Very funny." Hermione said mockingly. "Well whatever it is…I'm on to him."

"Speak of the devil." Ron said looking behind him, when Draco entered the Great Hall running to his friends.

"I thought he left the same time as you?" Harry asked.

"Yeah well. He's so stupid, he probably strayed from the path, we've been following for 6 years." Ron said, now reaching for more food.

"You waahbsdb eep?" Goyle mumbled.

"Looks like you guys didn't waste any time with this food." Draco stated looking down at what was left of his dinner. "Anyway, is Zabini in site?"

"Nup." Crabbe said. "He told us he wanted an early night."

"Great!" Draco beamed. "Are you guys tired?"

"Actually I am a bit sle-" Goyle mumbled.

"Alright gentlemen. Tonight we are going for a little…detour." Draco said.

"Where?" asked Crabbe.

Draco quieted his voice into a whisper. "Brace yourselves…tonight, we are going to sneak into Professor Binns' classroom, after my prefect shift."

"Why after your prefect shift?" Crabbe questioned.

"Because in detention, Granger told me that our detention had caused Professor Binns to postpone some work till after dinner." Draco clarified. "Meet me in the common room at about an hour after my shift ends."

"Okay." Goyle nodded.

"Now here's the plan…" Draco said using his food to represent him, Crabbe and Goyle.

It was dark and the clouds were gathering blocking the sky. However, the moon came out and shone on the castle. Everything seemed asleep. Even the Whomping willow seemed to have given everybody a rest. However, life inside the castle never rested. Especially inside the Slytherin Common room.

"Ready?" Draco asked.

"Yeah I think so." Goyle replied. "But can you run the plan bit by me again?"

"Why do I put up with you?" Draco muttered. "Well to cut a long plan short, we have to go into Professor Binns' room and change the votes so that Hermione gets more. Then sneak back and sleep, ready for the following day."

"O.k. But what about the-" Crabbe asked.

"Oh come on!" Draco said annoyed that they were just standing there talking. "Let's get a move on."

Draco, Crabbe and Goyle slowly exited the Slytherin common room all with a small light on the end of their wands. They made their way through several staircases. Every now and then the staircases would change direction and they would have to take a longer route to go back to where they intended on going.

"Where were you at dinner? Granger came ages before you." Goyle asked when they were sneaking through a narrow hallway.

"I went into the library to look for a book." Draco replied.

"What book? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Crabbe asked tripping over a small red rug.

"Shut up!" Draco demanded quietly. "You'll wake the whole bloody castle up!"

"I'm sorry." Crabbe said getting back onto his feet. "I'm just tired and I don't know where I'm going. It's so dark."

"Well then go back to our dormitory and go to sleep." Draco demanded not wanting to waste time.

"But-" Crabbe started.

"I don't want us getting caught, you know." Draco hissed through clenched teeth.

"Ok then." And Crabbe started going in the opposite direction, not exactly sure where he had to head first.

"Come on." Draco whispered.

Draco and Goyle went through more hallways and staircases by the time they had reached the entrance hall. They went outside, clinging onto their robes from the cold winds. They took the short cut and went into the greenhouses. From there Draco and Goyle went through a couple of staircases and hallways.

"So how are we going to get to the vote parchments?" Goyle asked.

"Well, in the book I scanned through, estimating the height and other things of the box Professor Binns put them in, we'll probably have to practice a variation of commands. I would have just left it with no spells but it's not like it contains top ministry information in it."

They headed up a spiral staircase and walked through more hallways. Finally they reached the classroom and surprisingly the door was wide open.

Draco walked inside the classroom and told Goyle to keep watch in the Hallway; behind a statue of an ancient wizard in long robes.

Draco went in and saw the small blue box perched on Professor Binns' desk. He approached the box and whispered "Nox" followed by "Alohomora". Nothing happened to the box. "Hmm. thought that might happen." Draco told himself. He tried a variety of things, like shooting sparks, burning and even blowing the box up, but it was no use. It just wouldn't budge.

"Lumos." Draco whispered and again a small light appeared on the top of his wand. He leaned closer and held his wand close against its golden handle.

_That's it! _Draco thought. _It's locked by a password. _

His mum had had a green one that guarded all her jewelry. All you had to do to open a box like this was to clearly say the password or passwords and the lid would open. Unfortunately, it was usually impossible to guess the passwords.

"All teachers are so secretive. If they want us to learn the secrets of life then why do they hide everything from us?" Draco moaned fed up he had gone to all this trouble for nothing. "They expect us to say ooo I love tests or yay I love homework."

_Click_

The box lid flew open and Draco turned amazed.

_Well, I must admit that it was a good password. No pupil would have ever said that. _Draco thought.

He walked up to the box and sorted the small bits of parchment two piles: one which had a pile of 'Dracos' on them and one with a pile of 'Hermiones' on them. Draco counted both piles and was rather surprised to see that only two more people had voted for him. Then again there was two more people on his side. He took three 'Dracos' out of the pile and burnt them with the end of his wand. He replaced the 'Dracos' with three 'Hermiones' and put them all into the box. He saw another piece of paper in the box but thought that it probably was some boring document.

"Goyle." Draco said. "You can go back to the common room." But to his surprise Goyle had already left a note saying:

gwt slipy. Went bac to common rum.

"Great to have loyal friends like him on the go."

Draco ran through the greenhouses, out and then into the Entrance Hall. He was about to rush up the staircase but then he heard footsteps so Draco quickly ran into the broomstick cupboard. From a small crack in the door Draco saw Filch and Mrs. Norris coming to a halt near the staircases. _Oh shit!_ Draco thought. _What the hell is the ugly man with the stupid cat doing here? It's past midnight! _

What was he going to do? He couldn't just run up the stairs hoping somebody had put an invisibility potion in his food. He had to think tactics. He got up and banged his head on a broomstick. _Ow!_ Draco mouthed. _Stupid broomstick. _He glanced out again and it didn't look like either Mrs. Norris or Filch were going to move. _That's not fair._ Draco thought. _If only ideas hit me quickly. Ow this stupid broomstick! Hmmm…_

Draco grabbed a shabby broomstick and looked through the crack. Filch was turning to look at a painting. Draco ran out of the broomstick cupboard and outside into the cold. He shivered as he mounted his broom and flew up. "Stupid splinters. Can't this school get new brooms? These are so tacky!" Draco said to himself. He wasn't _that_ good at flying but if he was made seeker then he must have been doing something right. He flew up where the windows overlooked the bit of the lake which he usually saw from his window.

Draco flew up next to the windows and almost fell right off it! He was now hanging on to it with only his hands, his body swaying in the wind. He tried not to look down; his doom waiting for him below. His heart was pounding and he was so frightened he almost peed his pants. The broom turned slightly and Draco looked into the window.

He squinted his eyes because the lights were on in the room. He saw a figure walking closer to the window and almost let go altogether when he saw whose eyes he was looking into. Hermione Granger was now looking straight at Draco, half shocked and half confused. She went and opened the smaller window on her left.

"What the hell are you doing awake at this time?" Draco asked.

"Me? What in the world are you doing awake at this time...on a broom?" Hermione questioned.

"Oh you know. Just hanging." Draco answered his hand slipping. After about five minutes of him hanging and five minutes of Hermione giggling, Draco asked"You don't think you could help me."

"Actually I'm quite enjoying myself." Hermione smiled.

"Oh come on Granger….Hermione. Have I ever been mean to you?" Draco said knowing straight away that he had asked the wrong question.

"Well there was that time in our 2nd year when you called me a mudblood…and then..." Hermione said rattling the times he had been horrible to her.

"Just help me…please." Draco squinted when he said that last word. He hated saying it to anyone, let alone Hermione.

"I think I prefer _hanging_ around." Hermione joked.

"I'm dying here. The pain kills." Draco pleaded.

"You say it like it's a bad thing." Hermione said, then came to the conclusion. "Ok. But only because you have to do half of our potions work. And don't go telling anyone or I'll spread the word that you wet yourself."

"That's going to come true in a minute." Draco squeaked.

Hermione got her wand and put a spell on the broom to come closer to her window where Draco put himself right and got back onto the broom.

"What do you say?" Hermione teased.

"Uhhh..Thank…you" Draco said.

"I would love to say my pleasure, but there's no use in lying." Hermione said shutting her window. Then she went and sat on her bed laughing to herself. She couldn't wait to tell Harry and Ron.

END OF CHAPTER THREE

Author's Note

Thanks for reading this chappie! It was pretty long as I hadn't posted for quite some time so I decided to extend it a bit. By the way, to those who want to know…this is a Hermione/Draco fanfiction so they will end up together at the end. Just to clarify that as some people might not grasp the fact that I am trying to build something up here.But of course most of you know that already.

By the way please tell me how you would like me to respond to your reviews. Shall I reply by e-mail or in the special features or even a website which I thought of last week.

Thanks again! Keep on going people!

Special Features

Hey! This is not spam and has got to do with Harry Potter and my story. I would also like to clarify that it isn't necessary to read the special features if you think they are annoying as this is just something in case anybody who wants more of an in-site into the story.

Behind the scenes 

You have to keep this a secret. O.k.? Solemnly swear and everything. Just kidding. Well in order to write this chappie I told my mum that I was doing my science homework otherwise she would tell me to study, for my mocks. I'm a very bad influence and I know but I needed to finish this chappie by a certain date. But please everyone don't lie and don't do anything I would do.

Deleted Scenes

Footsteps were approaching the classroom, at a steady pace. This couldn't have been Goyle, or it would have been more of a plod. Draco did a table dive over the table and crashed onto the floor behind the desk, almost breaking his back.

He glanced from the side of the big mahogany desk and saw two big feet approaching the front of the desk. _Few it's just one of the teachers sleepwalking._ Draco thought and once the sleep walking teacher left the classroom Draco got up and decided that it was no use trying to open the box. He started to walk out of the room.

I'm sure you guys didn't want to read about a sleep walking teacher. Enough said.

Note

Not many extras were needed for this chappie but please feel free to e-mail me at if you want to be an extra in this plot.

Extras next time: Claire

Daniel

Lisa

C2s Open

Hi, if you own a C2 community on then feel free to add this story.

Rejected Chapter name

-I was going to call this chapter _phase two_ because it had phase two written all over it but thought it was too plain.

End Note

Thanks again.


	5. Please Shut Up!

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own a time turner either. However, if I did then I would go back to the good old times in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and get Ron to kick Mrs Norris. What? It would have been funny.

Author's Note

Yeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaa! I have finally posted up Chapter Four! I could sing! I have had a lot of coursework in various subjects but that's no excuse. I am sorry and I smell like poop. But yay, I've finished this chappie. I made it longer then it was originally going to be, because of the um 'little' gap. So please do not read it all at once because it's like 10 pages! I would also like to inform readers that this chapter isn't very good! I'm not being pessimistic or anything but only a few events occur compared to other chapters. I apologise and hope you don't eat me.

Chapter Four: Please Shut up!

"No I mean it. He was actually swinging outside my window in the middle of the night!" exclaimed a certain bushy haired girl. Hermione, Harry and Ron were all sitting down at their table in the History of Magic classroom, waiting for Professor Binns to arrive.

"What was he doing that for?" Ron asked.

"He was probably practicing for the Quidditch match Slytherin's got against Ravenclaw. It's a week after ours. Whoever wins will be in the final, at the end of the school year." Harry said looking at the back of the classroom where Draco was sitting. "I don't know why he chose the middle of the night, though."

"Well, I guess I did give him a _bit_ of work in potions." Hermione thought out loud, and turned back to look at Draco. "But either way, I'm going to have fun blackmailing him."

Ron looked back to see what the others were looking at.

"Hey Draco, you look tired." Hermione teased.

"Yeah…um…I had all that potions stuff you gave me yeste-" Draco replied.

"And quidditch I'm guessing." Ron butted in.

"Quidditch?" Draco asked.

"Yeah, you know that thing with them balls, brooms and all them hoops" Hermione smiled.

"Dam! That blabbermouth!" Draco whispered so that only Crabbe and Goyle could hear "She couldn't keep her filthy mouth shut!"

Just then Professor Binns came in silencing the whole class.

"Hello class. First I am going to count the results of our um...interesting debate we had last lesson." He said. Then without warning, Professor Binns muttered something and his box opened.

Some hufflepuff girls giggled with excitement. Harry and Ron faced the front of the class towards Professor Binns. "Now class, the winner of the History of magic debate is…"

Draco sat back on his chair waiting for Hermione's name to be called out. Hermione held her breath, Hannah shut her eyes, and a Slytherin boy named Daniel gasped. For a moment the only sound heard was coming from the portraits on the walls of famous historical people, whispering among themselves.

"MR. DRACO MALFOY." Professor Binns exclaimed to the whole class.

"Me?" Draco shouted shocked.

"Him?" Hermione cried out with anger.

"But….that can't be right!" Draco yelled more to himself then to anyone else.

"Mr. Malfoy won fair and square. He had three more votes then Miss. Granger. Now everyone today we're going to revise for your N.E.W.T s, so turn to page 127 in your textbooks and start working from there." Professor Binns instructed.

Hermione turned around and gave Draco an evil stare, leaving Draco even more messed up.

"Well done Draco" Crabbe said proudly.

"I definitely, positively, absolutely changed it right." Draco muttered, when suddenly Professor Binns asked Hermione to step outside the classroom. Draco got up and pretended to get another textbook, and purposely knocked the whole pile of spare books onto the floor, near the door. Then he heard what Professor Binns had to say to Hermione.

"Listen, Miss Granger that work and research you gave me has gone missing from the box." Professor Binns said sounding serious. Just then Draco remembered the small piece of parchment he saw the night before.

"But Professor…how did it happen? I mean that document has my plans on it and..and..if it goes into the wrong hands then it might ruin everything." Hermione said sounding more shocked then upset.

"Somebody must have guessed the password, but don't worry I'm sure you can think of other good ideas." Professor Binns reassured Hermione. Draco stacked all the books onto the desk and ran back to his place.

"What did you go up there for?" Goyle asked confused.

"To eat a cabbage." Draco said sarcastically.

"Really? Can I have some t-" Goyle asked until he was cut off by an evil stare from Draco.

The rest of the lesson went very slowly, as not only had they had to revise all the boring dates but every time Draco looked at Hermione, she looked like she was going to blow her top.

At the end of the class Draco went the long way around to the library, to think the previous night over. He and Hermione worked for the whole of lunch.

Lunch finished and everybody was off to their lessons. Draco had Divination which he usually used to laze around and chat. As Draco climbed up the spiral staircase he saw some kind of black powder on some of the steps.

_Trelawney's probably been experimenting whether we can see the future with floo powder._ Draco thought out and ran up the remaining steps. _I wonder what it's going to be today. Tea-leave reading, star gazing, crystal ball analysis-_

"Palmology. It's not easy but if you are in contact with your inner eye, then I'm sure you may be able to pull it off." Professor Trelawney said, to the few students sitting in front of her who had chose Divination.

"I wish I could pull her inner-eye off." Blaise whispered to the girl near him.

"Mr Malfoy, since you have come from the library I'll excuse you."

Draco who thought he was earlier then usual sat down next to Crabbe.

"O.k. now class." Professor Trelawney said in her high pitch voice. "Take the person sitting next to you's left hand and place it in your right."

The class followed her instructions and Crabbe ended up holding Draco's hand, Lavendar's in Parvati's, Claire's in Blaise's and Padma's in Goyle's hand.

Not everybody was pleased with the seating arrangement that Professor Trelawney had distributed. This was because Blaise and Draco had levitated crystal balls around the classroom, the previous lesson when Professor Trelawney had to go to visit the Ministry of magic one day. The classroom was so misty that day that they couldn't see where the crystal balls had gone and dropped them, hard on the bookshelf, which was now broken.

"Locate the life, head, love, fate, sun or children line, on your partner's hand. Use your reference books for help and once you're done call me." Professor Trelawney said in her squeaky voice.

"Well, Draco. Your line of fate shows that you have blonde hair and grey eyes." Crabbe started.

"No Crabbe. My face says that. Try again and make it quick, I'm tired and I need a nap." Draco scowled.

"O.k." Crabbe continued. "Your mother will meet you in your fate."

"What the..my mum's dead you plonker! Where are you getting this off?" Draco said and leaned over to see what page Crabbe was reading from. "That's the wrong page! We're doing palm reading, not astrology!"

"What's the difference? Crabbe asked confused.

"Is there a problem here?" a high pitched voice with large glasses asked.

"No professor." Draco replied.

"Well it seems like there is." Professor Trelawney squeaked. "My inner-eye tells me you have to overcome a serious obstacle"

"Well, getting the page number wrong in a textbook is a real life changing experience." Draco said as Professor Trelawney went off to Blaise's table. "Her inner-eye is getting up my inner arse! I cannot wait until the end of this year when we are free from all this stuff. Anyway, let me try."

"Your love line looks lonely because it…um..looks…hey is that a stain?" Draco asked.

"Oh yeah, from lunch." Crabbe blushed, as Professor Trelawney came back.

"Please do not talk. I would not like to know what you had for breakfast. Although, I already know it was tomato soup." Crabbe looked amazed.

"We all had that this morning." Draco declared.

"Yes, well my inner-eye knew before-hand." She said, then grabbed Draco's left hand and said, "You head-line indicates that if you keep a strong and level minded mentality, then you can and will accomplish the food for your plate." She then grabbed Crabbe's hand. "And you my dear, will end up eating his food from his plate."

"You can read the future?" Crabbe asked still in shock.

"No, she can read your weight." Draco muttered.

The rest of the class predicted from one's school pet being eaten by a dragon, to another losing a bet. By the end of the class everybody was tired, but still had enough energy to run out.

Draco too, ran to his next lesson, not wanting to make Hermione angrier then usual.

"I'm on time." Draco said, sitting next to Hermione.

"I needn't say you should always be punctual." Hermione said, now more calm then she had been in the library for winning the debate and also less traumatised then Draco had seen her after Professor Binns had talked to her.

It was potions and today was the only lesson; they had to prepare for the presentation. Every pair, set off by mixing the ingredients in an 115 cauldron.

"Pass the gillywater." Hermione instructed. "Now the fish tail." Draco handed her each ingredient and sat down. "O.k. We have to leave it to boil for five minutes, then add the root hairs….Hey why are you sitting down. I need your help."

"O.k. Your honour." Draco said slightly tired and curtseyed.

"You honour is used in court, Draco." Hermione said stirring the cauldron.

"Whatever." Draco said then turned and for his own sanity muttered. "Stupid know-it-all"

"How can I be stupid if I'm a know-it-all?" Hermione answered back.

"Because you know everything…but your brain is stupid." Draco thought out loud.

"If my brain is stupid, then you're a troll." Hermione screeched.

"Well if I'm a troll then you're a constipated turnip." Draco said losing his temper after being insulted.

"Turnips cannot be constipated." Hermione corrected.

"Stupid know-it-all." Draco muttered again calming down.

"Now please don't get me started on that again." Hermione said and looked the large wooden clock on the wall.

Although, he knew he should be nice to Hermione because of certain bet conditions, Draco was finding it very difficult. His mood had totally fell: he had snuck out last night to change the debate results which ended up muddled up, lost practically all his sleep, had a tone of potions theory work to do and practice for quidditch, not to mention that he was always mad after Trelawney's lessons.

"O.k. now Malfoy, can you check if its room temperature." Draco stuck out his hand and replied, "I'm assuming so."

"Stop being silly, we are being assessed next lesson!" Hermione replied.

"What?" Draco replied astonished that Hermione had taken him seriously, "And anyways it doesn't matter what temperature the room is in because it will always be room temperature."

"Please shut up." Hermione scowled. "And stop being so insensitive."

"I'm not being insensitive. I just don't care."

"Draco, just take the temperature and record the readings." Draco did as he was told and then watched Hermione stir the potion as she started giving him a lecture on their exams. He knew he had been hard on her and needed to think of a way to get into her good books.

_I wonder how I could get into that mind of hers._ Draco thought. _She's like a tortoise._

"Draco, are you listening to a thing I am saying?" Hermione finally asked.

"Huh?" Draco shook. "I'm sorry, I was lost in thought."

"It must have been an unfamiliar territory." Hermione muttered exhausted. "Anyway, double check your measurements because they may just be incorrect."

"Don't be so hard on me." Draco pleaded "It's not really my fault you have an attitude problem."

"I do not have an attitude problem!" Hermione paused. "You have a perception problem. Anyway, continue with the recordings."

"Control freak." Draco whispered to himself, knowing that he had landed back on square one.

"I am not a control freak." Hermione replied.

"Well then you don't mind if I stir it with this spatula." He said, picking up what looked like a large flat spoon and stirring the mixture rapidly.

"Hey, get that out!" Hermione scowled and as Draco took the spatula out, he accidentally spilt potion mixture onto Hermione. "Oh my-"

"Oops." Draco said meaning it, "I really didn't mean it." Hermione ran to the front of the class, with half the class looking at the weird, sizzling, blue substance splattered over the front of her robes. She grabbed a towel and ran back to her seat before Professor Snape, who went out to talk to Professor Binns returned.

"Just shut up, sit down and don't talk to me!" Hermione ordered, before Draco could utter a word.

_Well done Draco, you really blue that one._ Draco thought. _I better say sorry…now_

"I'm sorry." Draco apologised, not really meaning it.

"I know you did it by purpose." Hermione said continuing to wipe the potion off.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry." Draco sang. Hermione, however, just sat next to him and opened up a heavy green book on the key to making a potion accurate and reliable.

"I'm soooorrrrrryyyy." Draco sang. "I'm sorry."

"Shut up would you." Hermione screamed as Draco continued his bellowing.

"I'm sorry…I'm sooo sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorrrrryy…..I'm soooorryy…"

Suddenly, Hermione slammed her book shut and-

"I'm sorr-"

BANG!

Hermione thumped the big green book on Draco's head! This caused Draco to be knocked off his chair, unconscious.

"Is he dead?"

"No he's just sleeping."

"Is he sleeping for ever?"

"Shut up."

Draco opened his grey eyes and found himself, in the hospital wing, on one of the nice green beds, near the door.

"I'm still here." He said to what seemed to be Hermione, Blaise and other members of his potions class. Professor Snape now stood beside his bed looking into his eyes.

"Is it true what some of the class members are saying?" Snape asked.

"What?" Draco said sitting up.

"That Miss Granger hit you over the head with the third edition of Professor Slughorn's 'Accuracy counts'?" Snape sneered.

"Sir it just slipped, honest." Hermione lied.

"Excuse me Miss Granger, that question was not directed at you." Snape hissed and turned to Draco again. This was the chance to get Hermione back of all those years of hate, as with just one sentence, he could practically get Snape to give her a fail. But then there was the bet.

"Well the thing is…I…Hermione was reading the book and as she got up to check the cauldron, I accidentally knocked the book out of her hand, and well, you know the story from there." Draco lied.

The whole class went silent. Draco was lying to save his enemy? That couldn't be right. After all even if it was an accident, the normal Draco would make out like Hermione had purposely tried to slaughter him. Everybody left the Hospital Wing still stunned when Madam Pomfrey started to complain, how the books in the school were a dangerous hazard. Everybody but Hermione.

"Let's call it quits shall we?" Draco said before Hermione to put a word in. "After all you didn't tell the teacher about my little…alternative route around the school last night."

"O.k." Hermione said wanting to keep her slate clean, and then she did something that she had never ever done near or to Draco. She smiled.

Draco just sat there shocked as Hermione left the room. Had he just got a smile from Hermione Granger? Him? Draco Malfoy? He couldn't believe it. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice.

"I hope that Granger didn't knock all the sense out of you..not that there was much in the first place." Blaise entered the room with the marble chess set Draco had bought him last Christmas. He sat down on the large wooden chair next to Draco's bed and set the board up on the bedside table. As he did he said "Look, man, I've been thinking about the bet and I really don't think you're cut out for this." Blaise knew this would annoy Draco and he added, "I think we should up the stakes."

"What do you mean?" Draco said and then instructed one of his pieces to move.

"Why don't we involve cash?" Blais said gesturing one of his pawns to move. "After all I've been wanting to buy this premium snitch." Draco looked at the board and took one of Blaises's knights.  
"Ha." Draco smirked. "O.k. smarty pants, lets raise the stakes. Loser has to be the winner's slave for the rest of their time here _and_ pay up fifty galleons."

"Make it a hundred galleons and you've got yourself a deal." Blaise squirked, and moved his bishop.

"Deal," Draco said uneasy, knowing he was digging a hole.

The rest of the game kept on going back and fort. They were lucky madam Pomfrey wasn't there because she would have screamed at the mess the pieces were making. Blaise then moved his Rook forward, so that it would take Draco's queen. And when he heard Draco throw curses at him, he simply replied with a little I-always-win look. Draco retaliated by moving his queen forward and pushing the king into a corner. The game ended in stalemate and Blaise quickly got up as madam Pomfrey strted to lecture him, on how Draco needed his rest.

As Draco saw his friend being scolded, Draco thought. _Even though it cost me a knock over the head, I cracked the brick wall in between us. Now nothing can go wrong. _Draco smiled_. Nothing. _

"Oh no. It's all gone wrong." Hermione complained out loud. For the rest of the day Hermione had to work even harder because of Draco's 'accident': potions, lessons in general, other homework and her document that mysteriously went missing. She could not take any breaks in between her lessons and ended up doing most of the work when the teacher's lectured them about the coming exams. _At least Draco will be out of the hospital wing tomorrow for the assessment._ She thought while searching through her bag.

Suddenly, a paper aeroplane hit her on the back of her head and got stuck in her bushy hair. She turned around.

"What?" Hermione whispered.

"I need to tell you something." Harry whispered, from right behind her. "It's important, about the head posi-"

"Not now Harry, I've got numerous things to do." Hermione turned back as Professor McGonagall walked pass her to help Claire, a Ravenclaw girl.

"O.k. I'll tell you after class." Harry muttered.

However, after class Hermione forgot to wait for Harry and locked herself in her Head Girl dormitory room and worked hard into the night.

"O.k. Great. Only three hours of the potions presentation to finish….maybe I'll take a small nap."

"NO!" Hermione screamed waking Harry up, from the other side of the head student's common room.  
"What's up?" Harry asked.

"I fell asleep!" Hermione said dropping onto a small couch in the common room. "I fell asleep and then I didn't wake up! I still have to do the history on the potion in question!"

"I thought Draco was supposed to do that?" Harry asked confused.

"He was, but then he landed in the hospital wing and if I don't sort something out, I'm going to end up there soon!" Hermione panicked. "And I have the assessment first period!"

"Oh." Harry said not knowing quite what to say before saying, "Look can I just tell you that sometime this weekend you might be receiving a quick visit from Prof-"

"O.k, cool Harry." Hermione said getting up. "I'm going to go try reason with Professor Snape in the lesson." Then with that, she ran to her dormitory and got ready.

Once Hermione had finished gathering her books and presentation sheets, she skipped breakfast and ran to the hospital wing to tell Draco about their problem. However, he had already been signed out, so Hermione headed for the Great Hall.

Surprisingly, Draco wasn't at the Slytherin table eating chicken soup, like the rest of the Slytherins.

"Oh bother." Hermione said stressed and went and sat down next to Neville.

"Hermione, Harry said he needed to talk to you about something." Neville informed Hermione.

"Do you know where he is?" Hermione asked.

"I saw him levitating his school trunk across the corridor." Parvati said. "He probably needed help with his exams or something."

All the students started to leave the Great hall for their first lesson, and as Hermione made her way into the dungeons, she hoped Draco would be there.

He wasn't.

Hermione scanned the room several times during each pair's presentation and saw that Draco was not there. Today, the dungeons seemed gloomier then usual and the air seemed to be playing a song of its own. Then she heard it:

"Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy." Snape hissed.

Hermione stood up, and made her way to the front of the class with her unfinished theory sheets. If only she had still had the time turner then everything would have been fine. Alas, that was not to be.

"Professor." Hermione said seizing her opportunity to speak as the class shuffled around. "Draco isn't here, so I was wondering if we could do our presentation tomorrow instead of going to Hogsmeade?"

"How convenient. I'm assuming, you have completed all your theory sheets, so today you can present them. Tommorrow, Mr Malfoy will test the potion." Snape said evilly.

"Well, about that. Yesterday, Mal-Draco and myself agreed to split the theory up, but then he was sent to the hospital wing and-" Hermione tried.

"Miss Granger, are you telling me that you have not completed your partner's sheet, because of pure laziness." Snape questioned. "Because that would already lose you 10 marks off of your grade."

"No…I mean….yes," Hermione said struggling to find the right words. "Well fundamentally, I completed all my work for various other subjects and when I came to doing the history sheets-"

"Then I said I would do them instead."

Hermione turned around and saw a pair of rather tired looking grey eyes staring back at her. In his hands were the sheets that Hermione so harshly told him complete. "I'm sorry I'm late sir, but I had to return these potion books to the library and Madam Pince wasn't there at first so I had to find her."

"Very well, Mr Malfoy." Snape said.

Draco levitated his and Hermione's theory sheets into the air with a good dose of _wingardium leviosa _then started to get ready for the ultimate test. Hermione gave a speech on how the Confusing Concoction was used a thousand years ago, as Draco looked through the small beakers for their potion. Finally, he reached the beaker that had blue liquid inside and had 'Hermione' written on the base. It had bits of ash stuck on the top so he wiped it with his robe.

"Even until this day, people have used the confusing concoction in battle to turn the opposition foolish." Hermione announced illuminating various parts of the sheets as she spoke. After 10 minutes of data and case studies on the potion Hermione finished, "And now I will hand it over to my collaborator to show the effects of the potion."

This was it. Draco had agreed to play guinea pig in order to impress Hermione. However, bad things had happened to people that had taken faulty potions and just last year, a Hufflepuff boy had been sent to Mungo's because his ears had turned to bats which had flown out of the window. Hermione had decided that after taking the potion, Draco would have to step through various coloured hoops to show that the potion worked.

Draco stood in front of the first hoop which was purple and lifted his head. He emptied the contents of the water into his mouth and shut his eyes. However, something was wrong, the liquid was supposed to burn the back of his throat and soften up his ears, but nothing happened.

Draco opened his eyes and saw a bottle of blue colour dye on one of the high ash covered shelves. That's when he realized what he had just drunk: water was making its way through his body, not affecting his actions whatsoever.

But after a moment's thought, he knew what he had to do.. He shut his eyes and breathed in the odour of the dungeon. _Draco_ he thought to himself, _you're going to have to do some serious acting._

Author's note

Thank you ever so much for surviving this story until now and I hope I did it justice.

Special features

Hey! This is not spam and has got to do with Harry Potter and my story. I would also like to clarify that it isn't necessary to read the special features if you think they are annoying as this is just something in case of anybody who wants more of an in-site into the story.

Behind the Scenes

The idea of Hermione telling herself to "take a little nap" practically reflected what I did 'once or twice'. I'm not proud of it, but when one is tired, one must take a nap. Then the next day one gets their butt kicked by their teacher.

The title of this chapter is inspired by one of my best friends called Hannah. She told me she said this to someone and it set me off laughing. I need to get a sense of humor makeover.

Deleted Scene

"Finally! Where were you? You're a minute late!" Hermione scowled.

"O.k, keep your bushy hair on." Joked Draco, but Hermione didn't find that funny.

"Shut up, Malfoy! Anyway before you start to boast about your unjust victory, let me tell you that I don't care. I have bigger problems to sort out before you go rambling on, about how you beat me and how unintelligent I am and all that nonsense."

"Not to be a babble-pooper but I wasn't going to boast. And you gave a better argument then me" Draco announced, while Hermione stared at him surprised. "…even if I did win."

"Ukkkhhhhh" Hermione screeched furiously. "I can't believe I actually thought you would handle this maturely!"

"Hello! I tried…anyway that doesn't matter, what matters is how I'm going to do all this work by Friday." Draco voiced out.

"Well you seemed to have that worked out. What about at night? Your little flying experience, might have taught you something."

"I was out on strictly private business, Little Miss Granger." Draco blurted out.

"Shut Malfoy, or I'll…I'll.." Hermione said stuck for words.

"Sing?" Draco said unable to help himself once again.

"No, better, I'll tell Professor McGonagall that you were roaming round in the middle of the night, around the school, on a broom and without the consent of a teacher."

"O.k. I apologise." Draco said seriously.

"Are you mocking me?" Hermione said bewildered.

"What? No! I was just trying to be nice, so that we can get on with this potions project."

For the rest of the time in the library Hermione and Draco worked silently not uttering a word to each other.

Why did I delete this scene? At first I wasn't going to but if it doesn't add, it takes away.

C2s Open

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As most of you know I love getting reviews about carrots and marmite. Please review and this is the last time I'm going to bug you guys about reviewing, as I know it gets annoying after a while. I hope this message lasts until the end of the story because I would love any type of review.

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Sequel? Huh? What? Tell me more

I do plan on writing a sequel to this story when I've finished it, but do not assume that anything extremely bad will occur i.e. Draco will not die and come back as a ghost to save Hermione from a talking tea cosy. Alas, the tea cosy will have to be killed by Neville.

Shut your eyes now if hate spoilers!

In the next chapter look forward to the following:

--Draco's acting.

--More Blaiseness

-Quidditch match

-Hogsmeade trip! (again yay)

-Oh no. Draco joins Hermione's poetry club!

-Harry's secret is revealed.

The best bit is, that it will be written in the next week, as well as the chapter after that because I have half term. Hurray for half term! So expect to see two more chapters in the following week. Probably one on Valentine's day. Oooo

End Note

Whether you're a Draco/Hermione shipper, fanfiction regular, Harry potty or just a random person reading my story, thanks for surviving it and being patient.

p.s. There are three sides to any argument: your side, my side and the right side. Have a good week.


	6. Destructive Margins

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Harry Potter and I do not own a car. But somehow to I manage to drive people mad.

Author's Note

I apologise for being cruel and not updating and no one will probably ever read this because you hate me so much but…I'm sorry. It is explained or rather my excuses are in the special features section so you don't have to read them all. This chapter is really long and I think it's my worst chapter yet, (sorry about that) but it had to be done.

Anyway, on with the story…

Chapter Five: Destructive margins

"Well, now Draco will reveal the effects of this potion," Hermione repeated and under her breath and she whispered, "Won't you?"

Hermione had no time to thank Draco for completing the work that she had fallen asleep doing. She hadn't even thanked him for agreeing to be her guinea pig in their presentation. Furthermore, if he mucked this up then she would never forgive him.

The class stared at Draco, waiting for any movement from the blonde haired Slytherin. _Here goes nothing,_ Draco thought and opened his eyes. The class straightened up in their seats when they saw Draco move.

"What's going on?" Draco asked and looked around the room as though he had entered an alternate universe. "What are all these hoops?" He walked up to the red hoop and pretended to examine it.

"Put your left foot through the red hoop," Hermione commanded relieved.

Draco lifted his left hand and put it through the hoop. Then he pretended to struggle with his arms and legs, looking up to the rest of the class as though they would help him. He then lifted his left leg and jumped through the hoop. It glowed and disappeared.

"Put your right arm and right foot through the brown hoop," Hermione instructed.

A confounded Draco put his left foot through the blue hoop, as well as his right hand through the same hoop and attempted to go through. He accidentally tripped over the magic hoop then -

CRASH

Draco fell and flattened down a poor Ravenclaw boy, along with all his books, parchment and project sheets.

"Thank you," Snape sneered after noting down a grade and then he looked up to give another lecture to his class. "Let this be a lesson for you all to take risks like Mr Malfoy did today. He conquered his fear and tried a very rare potion which is usually only attempted by experienced wizards. Certainly, there was an error in the potion but it was all very well demonstrated."  
"Thank you, Professor Snape," Draco thanked, "And my partner contributed too."

"Yes, well," Snape replied. "I have to present the same grade to Miss Granger, although leaving the important jobs to you does not sound very commendable."

"I -" Hermione started but then realised that the man before her was determining 20 of her Potions N.E.W.T mark. A few more groups showed their demonstrations and after, Snape said the words that pleased all of his class, "End of class. You are now dismissed."

All the students left the class in a rush to get to their next lessons. Draco was still confused - no the potion hadn't done this - but the change in the so called potion had. Why was there water in only his and Hermione's flask? What had happened with the voting that other day? - And why in the world was Hermione waiting outside for him?

"What happened?" she questioned immediately.

"Huh?" Draco replied.

"I know that something went wrong with the potion, since your idea of a confusing concoction was slightly different to the effects I wrote about… So explain."

"Well. Sit down." Draco stuttered and signalled for Hermione to sit on the stairway.

"Was it too much gillywater?" Hermione asked.

"No," Draco replied.

"Too much fish tail remnants?"

"No."

"Was it stirred too many times?"

"No."

"Was the temp-"

"Look… Grang… Hermione," Draco butted in. "We didn't do anything wrong."

"What do you mean?" Hermione looked bewildered.

"Someone - I'm not sure who - replaced our potion with the stuff you find in the lake." "But that's crazy." Hermione responded. "The only person who we don't get along with is… well each other. Mind you, it might have been one of Harry's 'fans'."

"Fans?"

"There were a whole load of people around when you had your outburst earlier on in the week." Hermione replied, "I wouldn't be surprised if they tried a stunt like this."

"Mind you, the flask had _your _name on it." Draco said out loud, and when he saw Hermione's face he added, "But everyone knew I was with you."

"Anyway, I have to go to Arithmacy," Hermione sighed and started to make her way down the staircase.

"Possibly the most illogical subject in the world," Draco muttered under his breath and then realised that Hermione had heard him.

"Says somebody who's taking Divination? One of the most useful subjects in the world, I speculate," Hermione replied sarcastically. "What was with your dodgy acting anyway? My Crookshanks can do better then that!"

"Hey! I just did my impression of Goyle!"

Hermione burst out laughing and placed her hand onto Draco's shoulder to steady herself on the staircase. She couldn't stop laughing and although Draco wasn't sure what was funny either he started to laugh too. Finally, she realised what she was doing and quickly lifted her hand off his shoulder and ran down the staircase towards the Arithmacy tower.

"Phase two…complete," Draco smiled and ran down the stairs as though Christmas had come early, although if it was Christmas then he would have already lost the bet, but you get the idea.

The Great Hall was packed with students at dinnertime as all the students, especially the ones studying for their exams, had worked immensely throughout the day. All tables were filled with different assortments of foods from various parts of Britain. One person, who was especially enjoying the food, was sitting at the Slytherin table.

"Oh gwad, this food is like music to my ears," Crabbe scoffed.

"And it smells like music out your backside an all," Blaise said sniffing the air between him and Crabbe. "So Mr Malfoy, how is your side of the bet going? Almost a week has passed with just four more weeks left until the party. Scared?"

"You wish," Draco replied grabbing a handful of chips. "It's going brilliantly. I've already managed to soften the thick layer of wool between me and the mudblood. But if you want to milk information out of me, that's all you're getting."

Blaise smiled as though he had remembered a joke.

"Yeah!" Crabbe said. "Draco's not a cow. You can't milk him. And even if he is, he's semi-skimmed…no better…he's milk-less. So you can say bye-bye to that milkshake you were planning on having before dinner. No, you're not going to get any sleep ton-"

"Crabbe…shut the hell up!" Draco demanded squeezing ketchup onto his chips.

"So, are you going to the Quidditch match on Sunday?" Blaise asked moving onto a lighter topic.

"Damn right I am." Draco added. "It'll be easy to talk the mudblood when Gryffindor win and she'll be off her rocket with happiness,"

"What makes you think Hufflepuff are going to lose?" Blaise posed.

"Hufflepuff always lose," Draco explained. "They're not rough enough. They make stupid decisions and basically hand over the snitch to the opposition. It's ludicrous."

"Can't wait till next week Sunday, then you can show the Ravenclaws whose boss." Blaise laughed.

"Who's the boss?" Goyle asked.

"Never mind." Draco said.

"No, tell me." "Goyle persisted.

"Oh Lord."

"Please. Tell me"

"Shut up."

"Nobody!" Blaise screeched ending their tittle-tattle and looked up to see a Ravenclaw girl, with long blonde hair hanging down to her waist, standing behind Draco. Draco turned around and grinned.

"Hey, Loony Lovegood!" Draco shouted to the girl behind him. Immediately, the whole Slytherin table erupted in laughter. Luna's face dropped and then she started to feel uneasy.

"Shut up everyone," Blaise demanded above the laughter which slowly died down.

"It's such an old joke. Get over it…Now Miss Lovegood, what can we do for you?"

"Well I'm…I mean Hermione is having a poetry club and I…she was wondering if anybody was interested." Luna said in her high pitched voice while handing out leaflets.

"Well that sounds interesting!" Blaise alleged trying to sound enthusiastic and kicked Draco under the table. "Doesn't it Draco?"

"Um….yeah…poetry…I love poems. They're so…interesting and ummm…clean." Draco uttered unconvincingly.

"Well, if you're interested come down to the lake on Thursday, at lunchtime." Luna finished and walked over to the Gryffindor table where Hermione was looking somewhat annoyed. _Oh damn!_ Draco thought. _She must have seen me calling Luna names!_

"Oh, I'm interested all right." Blaise muttered looking towards the Gryffindor table.

"Huh?" Draco asked.

"Nothing." Blaise looked down at his dessert filled plate.

"Anyway, what was with the '_Shut up, it's an old joke'_?" Draco imitated. "Someone would think you were standing up for _her_! Remember we're playing _against_ Ravenclaw next week and we don't want a traitor in our midsts."

"Man, I was just wondering what she was doing at our table. No need for a big fuss over it!" Blaise got up and left the Great Hall.

"Temper, temper." Draco directed at Blaise, wondering why he had changed from his calm self to a troll.

"So what's the plan for the next part of the Bookworm Project?" Crabbe asked from across the table.

"Ooo…I've got a great idea!" Mumbled Goyle from his plate(s).

"Does it involve poisoning the school cabbage patch so that people grown fungi out of their noses?" Draco asked.

"No."

Draco smiled, "Talk to me."

"Well it's not really my idea but I saw it in a wizarding play, its called Cinderump. It's really really good, I saw it when I was little andhmph-" Goyle chewed his food down.

"Carry on." Draco ordered.

"Well you hire some people to steal a prized possession from the wormbook…like a book, then you rescue it and return it." Goyle said cutting it short so he could eat more food. Draco grinned, and his friends knew what this grin was for.

"Wow, where did this cleverness come from Goyle? I don't think your potion from this morning has worn off!" Laughed Draco, "I'm liking it, I'm liking it very much. But let me make one alteration: instead of a prized possession, how about the bookworm herself?"

Meanwhile, at the Gryffindor table Luna had sat down next to Hermione to discuss the poetry club. Most people had left the Great Hall so there was enough space to talk now and the teachers weren't so bothered about students sticking to their allocated tables.

"I still don't see why you can't just tell everyone that it's your club?" Hermione persisted.

"If I do then they'll act like small sheep being skinned." Luna screeched.

"Pardon?" Hermione probed.

"They'll all say that the loony girl is running the poetry club and nobody would come. You know what they're like. Like headless chickens going astray. Especially that blonde one," Luna replied. "Talking of the chicken and here he flies."

Hermione turned around and saw Draco heading for the Gryffindor table.

"Hi," He said politely when he arrived. There was silence. "I just wanted to say…I just wanted to apologise to you…Luna…for my inappropriate behaviour earlier on. I wasn't thinking and I know you already have to put up with lots of others calling you names." The girls remained motionless, so Draco continued. "I'm sure you're a good person and all…no you are a good person and you're very errr…different…in a good way, of course. And I was way out of line before…okay….bye."

Draco tried to look up to see the girls' impressions but couldn't put himself to do it. Instead he turned around and dashed out of the hall, leaving an puzzled Luna and a rather awestruck Hermione.

"Well, that was…uncommon." Hermione commented.

Hermione entered the Head Boy and Girl's common room feeling absolutely shattered from a hard days work. Harry already seemed to be fast asleep because there was not a sound to be heard in the room. Hermione hadn't talked to Harry much that day. He had seemed very distant; mind you he was always on another planet when there was a Quidditch match coming up. Hermione walked up to Harry's door and shouted,

"Harry, if you're awake then I would just like to say that I'll be back late every evening until Thursday because me and Luna are planning the poetry club and I'm going to help Neville with his Care of Magical Creatures project. Okay? Goodnight." And with that she set off into her own room exhausted but pleased that it was the weekend.

"Have you seen Harry?" Hermione asked Ginny and Luna the next day. They were sitting on small stools in The Three Broomsticks around a small table in the corner.

"Yeah, he said he needed to practice Quidditch for tomorrow's game." Ginny smiled. "That reminds me, I have to buy him a present for after the game."

"Well, I know this really good stall that sells jelly legs!" Luna replied.

"Ummm…okay we'll go there later when Hermione goes to Scrivenshaft's quill shop." Ginny replied.

A few tables down, in the centre of the room were three other people, all freezing their toes off.

"Can it get any colder?" Draco shivered. "Winter is not my cup of tea. Everything's cold and icy. Even the snow seems to be falling earlier than usual!"

"Yeah, it's almost like winter," Goyle said.

"Goyle, you plonker! It's bloody November!" Malfoy replied. "Anyway, where were you this morning?"

"Professor McGonagall made me take a test in her office. She said it was a wizarding IQ test," Goyle screeched.

"The results will probably come back negative," Draco shuddered in the cold. "Look, the bookworm and her friends are leaving."

Luna, Ginny and Hermione made their way towards the door.

"Sometimes, I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe," Luna commented as she left the room. "It's as though everyone else is in the wrong world."

"Everyone else?" Draco whispered as he got up. "What does that tell you?"

As Draco stepped outside as he watched Ginny and Luna head towards the left as Hermione started to walk towards the quill shop. "Wait out here." He told his two friends and set out across the snow retracing Hermione's route.

He flung the shop door open hard and walked in. It was a reasonably small shop but there were still quite a few customers. Draco slowly made his way to where Hermione was looking at several quills.

"Hello, Hermione." Draco said casually. She spun around. "What brings you here?"

"Hi…ummm…I came here to buy some extending parchment for my 37 page essay for Care of Magical Creatures. I have already drafted it but I ran out of parchment to rewrite in neat. " Hermione finished.

"37 pages? I'm just doing a one page poster." Draco continued. "I have plenty of parchment scrolls in my dorm if you want them. Crabbe and Goyle's work is usually 2 pages, if you're lucky, so they gave me most of their parchment. Plus I bought too many for our potions project."

"Thanks…I think." Hermione turned to leave then asked, "What are you here for?"

"Me? Oh I'm just…I'm here…." Draco struggled trying to think of something. "Quills! I need a new quill for ummm…"

"Writing?" Hermione tried.

"Yes…that's it…writing. You know me; I love writing and…stuff." There was an awkward silence and then Draco pointed towards the now clear cashier. "I'll just go buy it then." He walked towards the shop keeper and asked for a brown hippogriff feather quill as he was fully aware that Hermione was behind him.

"I'm sorry, we've run out of them." The shopkeeper replied.

"How can you run out of quills? You're a quill shop!" Draco asked crossly.

"Well, what else do you expect us to run out of? Owls?" The shopkeeper responded. Hermione turned to leave and Draco shouted, "Bye," hoping that his friends were ready.

Crabbe and Goyle waited in the alleyway next to the shop. When they saw Hermione come out they raised their long hoods over their faces and ran towards their victim. Goyle grabbed Hermione's arms and Goyle grabbed her wand from her front pocket before she could use it. Hermione looked at the duo completely taken by alarm and started screaming.

"Oh crap!" Goyle said from under is hood. "Crabbe…fix it."

Hermione was still screaming to have heard this and Goyle flung her over his back and started to run. If they had waited a minute longer then they would have been bombarded by villagers and students who heard the screams, but they would have put the noise down to the Shrieking Shack anyway.

Hermione, however, continued her yelling because she thought that sooner or later somebody would hear her. Even Goyle was clever enough to realise this. "Shut her up!"

Hermione wasn't being easy though. She did everything she could think of to try and get out of his grip: she kicked, screamed, punched, slapped, head-butted him and even tried biting Goyle but it was no use. Goyle may have been stupid but he was definitely too strong and bulky.

The three headed in the direction of the Shrieking Shack where they had planned on being 'beaten up' and 'hexed' by Draco.

"What was that spell again?" Crabbe muttered to himself walking behind Goyle. "That one that shuts things up?" He thought hard and then remembered. "Oh yeah!"

They approached a small patch of trees. "Scourgify" Crabbe muttered. Sparks flew out of his wand and flew towards Hermione, cleaning a small dirt mark on her winter jacket. "Wrong one." Crabbe screeched. "Hmm…how about….Avis."

Suddenly, a flock of birds came souring in their direction and Goyle out of shock, dropped Hermione onto the soft snow beneath them. She didn't waste any time because as soon as the blinding flock of birds had flow off, she kicked Goyle's knee with all her strength and then punched his eye. When he was on his knees crying she thumped his head. However, what she didn't see was Crabbe creeping up behind her. Just as he was about to grab her, she spun around and stomped on his foot and then kneed him in the -

Draco had waited three precious minutes and was now running through the snow, towards the direction of the Shrieking Shack, in order to play the hero. He reached a small patch of trees and then paused. What he saw was much scarier then anything he could have imagined. It wasn't a troll, it wasn't a dementor, it wasn't even Pansy Parkinson (thank God); instead he saw Hermione staring at him with utter disbelief. He then looked down at his friends who had now been beaten, bruised and…unmasked.

"Uh oh." Draco muttered.

"This was all your idea, wasn't it!" Hermione snapped, walking towards him.

"Technically, the actual idea sprung from Goyle and I just -" Draco started.

"Why in the world did you plan this?" Hermione stopped a few feet opposite him. "And to think I actually thought you gave up on harassing me and my friends! Everyone thought you had grown up like the rest of us. But the truth is you're still the evil little ferret you've always been!"

"Now calm down, Gr-" Draco reasoned.

"Calm down? How can I calm down? You get your stupid friends to try and kidnap me and you expect me to calm down!"

"Look, we didn't intend on hurting you or whatever. Why would we want to do that? Huh? It wouldn't achieve anything. I wouldn't be any richer. I wouldn't get any cleverer and quite frankly neither would my friends. I mean, come on, Crabbe wouldn't know up from down he if had three guesses. And for Goyle, well he wouldn't-"

"Can we stay on topic, please?" Hermione demanded. "What in the world did you aim to achieve by all this?"

"Well…certainly not this." Draco said more to himself then Hermione.

"I don't even know why I'm surprised! You've been doing this throughout the last 6 years, trying to destroy me and my friends."

"Well, we weren't planning on hurting you." Draco argued.

"Yes, you were." Hermione choked.

"No, we weren't."

"Yes. You were."

"Actually, no." Draco protested.

"Actually, yes."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Yes."

Silence.

"What were we talking about again?" Draco asked.

"Oh my goodness!" Hermione exclaimed. "You can't even have an uncivilised ruthless argument, without forgetting what you were fighting for!"

"Yes, I can."

"No, you can't." Hermione responded.

"Yes, I can."

"Shut up." Hermione commanded then took a step back. "What I'm trying to figure out is how far you would have gone. I mean, what exactly were you guys going to do to me? Feed me some horrific potion? Give me to a devil's snare? Or were you just going to lock me up in the Shrieking Shack, which - by the way - wouldn't help anyway."

"No way!" Draco objected, "You know Crabbe and Goyle are too scared to go anywhere near that place."

"Fine, what was it?" Hermione put her hands on her waist, fed up. "Were you going to make Goyle to sit on top of me and flatten me to oblivion?"

"Hey! Goyle's not fat." Draco objected. "He's just, I don't know, big-boned."

"Give me a break." Hermione laughed callously, however, still furious and angry. "Goyle's robes would probably cover the hole in the ozone layer. And the other one, Crabbe, he's so stupid that if he was to speak his mind he would be speechless."

"What's with all the personal attacks on my friends?" Draco answered back, trying to keep his hand from gripping his wand. Hermione had really infuriated him. His friends were the only living things he had left and he wasn't going to hear anything bad said about them- unless of course, he was to say it.

"Nothing. It's just that you've got no family to insult so…" Hermione stopped knowing she had gone too far. "I'm so-"

"Well, I'd rather my parents be dead than have filthy muggle parents!" Draco declared, now completely disregarding the bet, the money, or the consequence of him becoming Blaise's slave if he lost. How dare she insult his friends? How dare she insult his family? All he cared about now was getting one over on Hermione. "Oh yes, and the Nobel Prize for friendship and caring goes to Harry Potter who unfortunately was unable to rescue his best friend from getting kidnapped, because he was too busy chasing a ball with wings."

"Don't you dare say anything about Harry! He's been a better friend then most people I know!" Hermione growled, turning to leave now knowing that she wouldn't be able to control what she said for longer.

"What, even the Weasel?" Draco teased, letting himself go. "He's so poor, he can't even afford to pay attention in class."

"What are you now, a teacher?" snapped Hermione.

"No, obviously not. Otherwise you'd be kissing my butt," Draco exclaimed. "Hermione Granger, every teacher's pet. Shame they wouldn't train your hair to obey the rules of gravity."

"You can talk! Obeying the rules you say. That's what you're all about." Hermione fumed taking three steps forward, in Draco's direction. "Obeying what your father told, obeying his orders. Who to befriend and who not to befriend. What to do and what not to do."

"Shut the hell up, mudblood" Draco stammered stepping back a few paces.

"Oh yes, and there you go again, using words that would only hurt people! Because that's all you know! That's all your dad taught you. It must have been the shortest dementors kiss in the world, because he never had much of a soul to start with."

Draco stood silent, completely astounded. He would have hexed Hermione if he hadn't been shredded up inside. He would have cried if he knew how to. Meanwhile, Hermione stood there for a moment, trying to regain control over her actions.

"And now, I have 37 pieces of parchment to buy!" Hermione finished and walked past Draco, crumpling the snow under her feet. Draco, being Draco, came out of his state of shock and tried having the last laugh.

"Yeah well, I never had 37 pieces of parchment anyway!" He hissed.

Hermione stopped and turned. She took out her wand from her back pocket and pointed it in Draco's direction.

He couldn't run any faster. He was running out of breath and he didn't even have his wand on him. He looked back and there it was bigger then ever. The boy tripped over and just couldn't help looking up at the gigantic monster. It had big round black eyes, and it was extremely furry. He tried to escape, but he was cornered.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" The blonde boy screamed. He started to roll over towards the wall, yes, he was getting away! Oh no, maybe not. Yes if he kept on rolling, if he kept on -

BANG

"Ow!" Draco said finding himself on the floor. His arms and torso were now able to move. "Ah, the pain."

"You okay?" Goyle questioned in pain.

It was the morning after and there were three casualties in the hospital wing. They were all moaning in agony and coincidently all wearing Slytherin robes.

"Yes, I'm over the moon!" replied Draco sarcastically. "Help me back up."

Goyle helped Draco back onto his bed, clutching his eye. Draco added, "It's so bloody chilly in here, and before you grab a bowl, I meant cold."

"Oh," Goyle sobbed in pain. "It still hurts."

"You think you've got problems." Crabbe complained, "At least you can sit right."

"Silencio," Draco muttered, "You couldn't remember a simple spell like that."

He couldn't move his legs as they were frozen into place. Madam Pomfrey had treated his head, neck and shoulders and was working down every few hours. However, he was told that he would be in the hospital wing for another two and a half days. He hadn't, however, told anybody that it was Hermione who had put the spell on him. _She's going to regret she was ever born._ Draco thought. _I'll show that filthy-_

"Draco!" Blaise entered the hospital wing. "Heard you've been hanging out in here, lately."

"Don't ask." Draco replied.

"Oh, come on!" Blaise persisted. "Tell me, what happened to you guys? There's a rumour going around that some dark spirit came out of the Shrieking Shack and beat you gu-"

"You can always rely on the student body to come up with gibberish like that!" Draco paused. "Okay, I'll tell you, but you can't tell anyone."

"As if I would." Blaise smirked.

"Well, me and these two morons," Draco pointed at Crabbe and Goyle, "Well, we sort of planned this fake kidnap on Granger and well…she found out, so-"

"Oh my god! Granger gave you the ticket to the wing again? Wow! You've really got your work cut out for this bet, man." Blaise piped.

"That's it, though." Draco squinted. "I'm sick of the bet and I'm sick of being nice to her. Yesterday, she said all this stuff about my parents and…my dad. I don't care anymore. I know it's just a few weeks left till Christmas, but I rather spend those weeks harassing the hell out of her. I won't forgive her." He looked up at Blaise who was now sitting down on the velvet chair next to his bed. Blaise, however, looked like he had just lost the bet. His face had dropped and his smile had faded into nothingness. "What's wrong?" Draco asked.

"Oh, I'm sorry; I just thought I heard you admitting defeat." Blaise gestured.

"What? No!" Draco replied. "I'm going to destroy that mudblood if it's the last thing I do!"

There was a pause and then Blaise said, "I meant admitting defeat to me."

"Huh?" Draco snorted.

"Well, when you took up this bet, I was impressed. I thought, wow, the old Draco is back, and he's daring as well as bad-"

"I'm still bad." Draco argued.

"Yeah, but anyone can be bad. I can be bad, you can be bad and judging from yesterday's events, even Granger can be bad. But I gave you a challenge, and until now, I was impressed." Blaise knew his ways with the words. "The whole point of the bet wasn't to just show that you were what you've always been, but also that you were more than that. Now you just seem like any ordinary person."

Silence.

"So…you think I'm weaker?" Draco suggested.

"No, just average."

"What! Average is boring. Average is nothing. Average is trees in a forest," Draco babbled, "Who wants to be average?"

"Apparently you." Blaise started walking towards the doorway. "Anyway, I've got a Quidditch match to attend. And remember it's your choice. You could get her expelled or..."

Blaise left the hospital wing just as Professor McGonagall entered it. She walked straight up to Draco's bedside and said, "Mr Malfoy, I have a preposition for you."

Blaise stopped straight outside the hospital wing to straighten up his robes. He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and looked like he belonged in a toothpaste advert. He was just about to set off again when he heard a voice.

"I know what you're up to, you know." Blaise spun around and saw the large picture of Dumbledore, which had been put outside the hospital wing, glaring at him.

"I'm sorry?" He asked the portrait.

"I know what you're up to." The portrait repeated.

Blaise grinned again. "Well, I won't tell if you don't."

"Hermione are you okay?" Ginny asked. She was sitting next to Hermione in the seats inside the Hogwarts Quidditch stadium, dressed in the Gryffindor colours.

"Huh?" Hermione replied, "Oh yes, sorry, my minds just been elsewhere." Hermione hadn't told anybody about the day before. She couldn't because even she hardly believed how enraged she had gotten and how her mind had gotten out of control. _Malfoy deserves it, he was going to hurt you or possibly worse, _Hermione thought, but then her conscience was saying something else: y_ou let yourself to be brought down to his level. You said horrible things about his parents, as well hexing him, and now you're going to get into deep trouble. _That was true. She hated him and she hated how he had changed her morals. He was obviously going to tell a teacher. How could he not? This was the perfect opportunity to get her expelled. It was perfect.

The Quidditch match commenced and there was a loud cheer from the students in Hufflepuff colours as the Hufflepuffs were the first to get the Quaffle. Seconds later, the new Gryffindor chaser seized the red Quaffle from the opposition and zoomed to the other end of the pitch, scoring 10 points. However, this wasn't the only goal Gryffindor managed to score. The end score was 40-70 to Gryffindor, just before Harry had caught the snitch and secured Gryffindor's place in the final.

Two days had passed and Hermione had been getting worked up, knowing that these days would be her last at Hogwarts. She had tried to talk to Harry about it but many of his 'admirers' had been present.

Nevertheless, now she was petrified. Her worst fears had been confirmed as Professor McGonagall had asked Hermione to go to her office in the middle of one of her lessons. Teachers never did that in the 7th year. This was the year of their exams. The year of their N.E.W.T.s. They would be receiving their marks a few weeks after that. However, Hermione doubted she would even be seeing the exam paper, let alone the results.

She solemnly climbed a short staircase towards Professor McGonagall's office and walked slowly down one of Hogwarts' magnificent corridors. She reached the door and it opened magically just before she put her hand forward to knock on it.

"Come in, Miss Granger," She heard a voice say, but she couldn't tell if it was an angry or disappointed voice. Hermione stepped into the office and saw the teacher she had known, all her life at Hogwarts. However, nothing much had changed in those six years as the women before her still wore a long tartan dress, square glasses covering her beady eyes and her black hair tied up in a bun. Then she spoke. "It gives me deep disappointment to tell you-"

"I can explain." Hermione interjected. Professor McGonagall stared at her surprised. Hermione never interrupted teachers when they spoke. "You can?" Professor McGonagall replied. "I didn't think Mr Potter told you. He's been very busy lately."

"Harry? He wasn't even there." Hermione voiced more to herself then her teacher. "I'm not entirely sure what you believe to be the problem Miss Granger, however, Harry has been given the privilege of extra lessons, in order to pass his N.E.W.T.s and qualify as an auror." informed McGonagall.

"An auror?" Hermione asked confused, yet relieved that her time hadn't come. "I thought he didn't have the O.W.L results required."

"Yes, however, annihilating the most evil wizard alive did allow us to make certain exceptions to the curriculum." McGonagall smiled, "However, this does bring me to the point that I originally wanted to tell you. You must understand that he is also the Gryffindor seeker and cannot take upon too much. I am sad to notify you that the extra lessons will be tough for Mr Potter so he has decided…to resign as Head Boy."

"What?" Hermione exclaimed. "He...can't! I know Harry; he wouldn't leave me with this responsibility on my own."

"Well, that's what I called you here for." Said McGonagall, "We,- I and Mr. Potter - that is, decided that it would be better if we got a substitute. Somebody who has had experience with various aspects of school life. Mr Potter has moved back into the Gryffindor dormitories for this new person."

"Well, that seems…good." Hermione replied, thankful that she wasn't going to have to be on her own. "Who is it?"

"Well, the position of Head Boy will be filled by somebody who understands various issues that the student body finds important: Sports or Quidditch should I say, leisure, knowledge of the school grounds, and he has a large imagination. He was also in a group of um…privileged students in your fifth year."

"Privileged?" Hermione repeated, "Who?"

"I've asked him to come here after he was released from the h-"

The door opened magically and McGonagall smiled at Hogwarts' new Head Boy. Hermione turned around too to see who this new person was, that she was going to share much responsibly with.

"Hello Granger." The new Head Boy said.

Author's Note

Cheers my dears for reading this! And you may have noticed a small timing mistake, which I will fix. Draco now has a month to complete the bet. I know before it said only a month had passed, but I'm going to change bits when I repost the BETA read ones.

Special features

Hey! This is not spam and has got to do with Harry Potter and my story. I would also like to clarify that it isn't necessary to read the special features if you think they are annoying as this is just something in case of anybody who wants more of an in-site into the story.

Behind the scenes

It took me so long to write this chapter, because I was doing my GCSEs which are now done and dusted. Those of you who don't know what GCSEs are, they are these kind of end of school sort of exams we do in year 11. Another reason is that I got a new BETA who then was removed from the Perfect Imagination director, because he was inactive. So I kept on requesting BETA readers from there but they all had other projects. So instead I've just got my sister to BETA, so blame her if the grammar bad… laughs evilly.

Chapter Name

Okay, I don't want to give you a geography lesson but I got the chapter name destructive margins from when the continental crust overrides (or the other way round, can't remember) the oceanic crust, which later forms a volcano. So basically a small metaphor.

Deleted Scene

"Wooooooohooooo." Ginny screamed, "Go Caitlin!"

Harry soared ahead looking for the little glint of gold he only knew too well.

Twenty minutes later the score was 40-70 to Gryffindor and there had been an injured Hufflepuff who had been hit by one of the two jet black blugders. It was still very cold outside and Hermione was beginning to hope that Harry would find the snitch as soon as possible.

Harry, keeping his eyes peeled, circled down and up avoiding the bludgers and trying not to get in the Gryffindor chasers' way. Suddenly, he saw a small flash of gold reflect of Parvati's mirror she was holding to do her make-up. He looked up and saw it, flying higher in the winter's day. He zoomed up, controlling his firebolt, and turning sharply in its' direction.

He was now a metre away from it! He stretched his arms and leaned forward, grabbing the snitch with his right hand.

"Harry's caught the snitch!" screamed a Quidditch lover by the name of Crystal, who was doing the commentary.

A roar of triumph echoed through the stadium, while many Hufflepuffs' faces fell.

And that was the end of the game, but for another student, it was merely the beginning.

**I deleted this scene because it didn't really have a purpose and I'm not that good at writing Quidditch scenes.**

Spoilers for the story

-Draco moves into the Head Boy's room…aka becomes Hermione's neighbour

-Draco, along with a few of his friends, join 'Hermione's' Poetry club.

-An old face shows up in the story. However, not one we want to see.

End Note

Thanks for taking your time to read this.

I'll leave you with a really funny (well in my opinion) joke:

What's the difference between Sirius Black and a clever Slytherin?

Sirius Black has been spotted.


	7. Deep Poetry

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling does. My aim in life is to get the annoying Cillit Bang advert off our screens. Arggggrhhhhhhhhh. Bang and the dirt is gone. Eekk

Author's Note

Thanks to Hannah for letting me use her first few lines of her fanfic in the middle. Hope you enjoy it and sorry for being a bad updater! Sorry, if the Hermione's poem is bad but I can't write poems.

Chapter six: Deep Poetry

"What!? " Hermione said turning around again, "No. No way! You can't make him the head boy."

"Is there a particular reason for this?" asked Professor McGonagall, "Mr Malfoy used to be in the Inquisitive squad, hence has experience with school dealings, as well as good communications with other students."

"No, but…we don't get along," Hermione pleaded, "Ask any teacher. Professor Binns in particular. Please Professor you remember when we used to be in the same transfiguration class."

"Yes, however, both of you have matured considerably in the past few years and it may even reduce the Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry that has been going on for a long period of time. I'm sure the student body would benefit from having two responsible students such as both of you. However, before I did have my doubts and I confess that I still am rather concerned, but this is beneficial for the school." McGonagall smiled.

"Don't worry. I'm sure Hermione is just shocked with the new change. I'm sure she'll adjust well after a short period of time, Professor." Draco smiled, "After all, I don't remember her stepping out of line once. Do you?"

Although his question was aimed at Professor McGonagall, he was looking at Hermione, grinning. In an instant Hermione knew she couldn't win this. With a word he could get her in trouble and she knew Draco would love it.

"Yes, Miss Granger, is indeed, one of the best students Hogwarts has ever had." Commented the teacher, "For the rest of the day, Hermione will inform you of all the duties, show you the Heads' common room and help you move in. If that's okay with you, Miss Granger?"

"Yes, Professor." Hermione replied defeated.

"Are you sure about this?" Professor McGonagall questioned.

"Relax; we'll get on like a house on fire." Draco ensured her.

"That's what worries me," Their teacher muttered.

"How many times do I have to go over this?!" Hermione shrieked. "It's so simple, yet you choose to have an IQ of a peanut."

Herself and Draco were sitting on a sofa in the middle of the Head boy and girl's common room.

"Just go over the middle part again." Draco requested.

"Fine!" Hermione said annoyed, "Every fortnight we have a meeting with the prefects. Our next one is this Friday, and then every Saturday we each have to patrol the corridors until midnight. If a 1st year requests help in one of their subjects then we elect a prefect to help them for an hour at lunch, or we could decide to assist them depending on what subjects we specialize in-"

"I don't get that last part." Draco butted in.

"You don't specialize in anything, so you don't have to worry about that part. The students work through us, so if somebody comes to you with an idea for something, don't give them the cold shoulder." Hermione retorted, "If this is too much for you to endure, I'm sure McGonagall won't mind if you back out."

"As if." Draco responded, "It sounds like fun."

"Fun?" Hermione stood up from the sofa, "Fun?! This isn't _supposed_ to be fun! This is a responsibility you must value with every ounce of your being. You should be completely committed to it. Fun is going to Hogsmeade to buy some sweets. Fun is hanging out with your friends. Fun is…"

"…sending people to the hospital wing?"

That forced Hermione to stop her rant. "So Hermione, we're alright now?" Draco smiled.

"Fine?" Hermione asked, now sitting at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, "How could you think it would be fine!? You didn't even try to tell me!"

"Actually, I did try, several times." Harry continued, "But I need the time for extra study sessions and I know I can't do it without giving something up. And anyway, before you did most of the duties, so at least now you've got somebody more…useful."

"Useful"?" Hermione exclaimed, "Malfoy couldn't be useful if you jammed Advanced guide to Transfiguration up his bu-"

"Look." Harry said. "What are you asking?"

"All I want is for you to come back! You don't even have to do any work! Please understand Harry, I cannot live with that boy!" Hermione pleaded.

"Just give him a chance," Harry reasoned, "I really need this Hermione, please"

Hermione was speechless. Her own friend would not help her. Instead he made an excuse for her to give Draco a chance. What was this? A conspiracy? Nevertheless, she knew she was being unfair on Harry because he had made his decision due to educational purposes. She finished off her food quietly and then made her way to the Head common room. When she reached there she said the password, "raindrops" and entered. She looked around to see if Draco was there but to her dismay he was in the centre of the room, playing chess with Crabbe who was sitting opposite him.

"Hi Hermione!" Draco beamed when he saw her. "Isn't this great having your own common room?"

"Past tense." Hermione replied. "It _was_ great."

"Oh hi, um, Mud- er, Granger, er, Hermione, thing." Goyle faltered, slightly scared of what Hermione might do to him. He stood up, looked back at Draco and said, "I have to go now. I need to…clean my ears." Then left.

"I didn't know I had the ability to repel elephants." Hermione smiled amused.

"I think you've got the ability to repel anything," Draco laughed, then when he saw the aggravated expression on Hermione's face, added, "…which is good because if we ever get abducted by a Manticore then you'll come in useful…not that you're not useful anyway but…I'll just shut up."

"Good idea." Hermione agreed. "We need to discuss how the Christmas event is going to be held and what it is going to actually be, before Friday's meeting."

"I thought it was already agreed that it was going to be some sort of dance. Well that was what the rest of us were told at the beginning of the year." Draco commented.

"Yes," Hermione sat down opposite Draco where Crabbe had been, "But not only will that require a lot of work, but people will get distracted from their studies and end up worrying about their dates, not their education!"

"Isn't that the general idea of a dance?" Draco replied, "To cool nerves so that everybody doesn't go mental? We need to do what's best for the schoo-"

"Which will be to have a small games event in Hogsmeade." Hermione interrupted.

"No. Everybody is counting on us to throw something worth getting excited about and half the school already are looking forward to some sort of ball." Draco persisted.

"Well the sooner we inform them the less disappointed they'll be when they find out its a small winter games tournament." Hermione answered. "After all, we've only ever had one ball in our time here and who are we to change the traditional Hogwarts routine?"

"Well…they won't be happy." Draco nodded. "And our role is to make them happy."

"No it is not!" Hermione responded, "Our role is to do what's best for them, and getting stressed over what they're going to wear or who they're going to go with, is not best for them in the long run."

"Fine. Why don't we get the prefects to vote on Friday's meeting?" Draco proposed.

"That's the best idea you've had so far but they'll probably be more concerned about their education then a ball."

This gave Draco an idea. "Okay, why don't we make this interesting. If the prefects agree to a dance or ball then you'll have to be my date for it s-"

"What!? No way. I would rather remove my eyeballs and use them as a quill holder!" Hermione declared.

"…But if the prefects say they want a winter tournament," Draco continued, "I won't talk to you for the rest of the time we have here at Hogwarts unless its to do with Head duties."

"Agreed."

It was a calm winter's night, the birds were asleep, the owlery was silent and there was a mysterious shade of blue invading the skies. However, not all was at peace.

"Can't you just keep quiet?!" Hermione howled outside Draco's dormitory. The door opened and Draco's head peered through.

"I'm sorry but I need to sort a few minor things out." Draco apologized.

"What like knocking down the ceiling?" Hermione said sarcastically.

"Something like that." Draco replied and shut the door on Hermione's stunned face.

BANG BANG

_That's it _Hermione thought and pointed her wand at Draco's door, "Alohomora." It opened. _Honestly, this boy hasn't even cast a fasten spell on his door. Anybody could get in. _Hermione thought. She entered Draco's room except he wasn't in it, so she made her way into his bathroom and there in front of her very eyes was a clutter of stone, dust and bath tiles. Draco had somehow managed to destroy his whole swimming pool sized bath. "Exactly, what are you doing?" Hermione asked.

"How did you get in here?" Draco questioned from inside the bath tub but before Hermione could answer said, "Anyway, what do you know about getting wands from drains?" Hermione jumped into the wrecked bath and walked towards Draco. She looked down and saw that a wand was stuck in the drain.

"Do I want to know how that got there?" Hermione asked rhetorically.

"Umm…well I was checking this massive bath out and when I went to test one of the taps my ring fell off into the drain." Draco told Hermione who was trying not to laugh, "So, I got my wand and pointed and said wingardium leviosa and all that, but then my wand got stuck in the drain…so yeah."

"Okay…then why is the rest of the bath a mess?" Hermione asked.

"I tried taking my wand out by casting a spell that would explode the bath so-"

"Why don't you try summoning a brain?" Hermione butted in, rather annoyed at Draco's stupidity.

"Why don't you try summoning a sense of humor?" Draco snapped back, very rudely. "I mean, try summoning a book, like a really good one or-"

"I'm getting this wand out." Hermione announced. "The muggle way."

"Muggle way? That's pathetic." Draco thought out loud, "But I wouldn't be surprised, it coming from a mud-" Draco stopped when he looked at Hermione's expression: angered and somewhat dangerous. He tried to redeem himself, "Mud…mud...erm…its really good for flowers and that's why mud is good for you, because you're like a flower. All colourful and…happy."

"Just mind the thorns," Hermione threatened, and pulled on the wand. It didn't move. "It needs a little twist." She twisted the wand and this time pulled so hard that she fell backwards and landed on top of Draco. Completely taken by surprise, Draco just stayed frozen still on the floor while Hermione struggled to get up from on top of him. "Well…now we have that sorted I can final-"

"Nah, I still need to get my ring back," Draco replied in the same position.

"What!?" Hermione screeched, "You've almost just lost your priceless wand which you need for practically everything, and now you want to get yourself in a mess again and acquire your pathetic ring?"

"Well, actually its made of real gold and..and…" Draco paused.

"And what?" Hermione asked.

"And its worth a lot." Draco finished.

"Well you'll have to wear one of your other ones, because it seems to have gone into the endless plumbing system, so we can't even locate it and use a summoning charm." Hermione said.

"But it was a lucky charm." Draco complained as well as thinking, _and it got Granger to literally fall back onto me. It must be lucky._

"Be quiet and go to sleep." Hermione walked out the door. "And fix your bath!"

Draco smiled. _Maybe I'll leave it a day or two._

"Hi everyone!" Luna said enthusiastically. "Thanks for coming to this poetry club which will not only cast you into a different world, but help you finding yourself. Whether its within or in a tree. You'll know."

Hermione sat down miserably on a large rock near the bank of the lake. Her past week had been terrible: she had just about escaped getting low marks in her potions assessment, lost a debate against her enemy, almost been kidnapped, nearly got expelled twice, her rival had been given the role of Head Boy, she received two essays to write on Elladora's auto-biography for History of magic and now Draco and his friends had decided to join the one thing she thought would brighten up her week…poetry club.

"Okay, so it's going to work like this." Claire Jobling said, "Everyone has the next twenty minutes to write a short poem about whatever you pick out Luna's hat and then you read it to the rest of us. Here, I'll start." She shut her eyes and put her hand in the black school hat and picked out a topic, "I've picked wisdom, so that's what I'll work on for today. Now you guys can pick yours." Luna went around the rather large poetry group with her hat and everybody took turns to pick out their topic.

"Ooo I've got beauty." Blaise smiled. "This is gonna be fun! I can just look at my reflection in the lake! What have you guys got?"

"Death" Draco replied horridly.

"Temptation? That's like when you measure whether something's hot or not or something, right? What'd you get?" Said Goyle.

"I got coward!" Crabbe responded excitedly. Opposite them Hermione looked at her own word and smiled...love. Over the holidays she had taken out numerous poetry books and read most of the romantic poems. Maybe she had grown up over the holidays, maybe the war against Voldemort had changed her, but whatever it was, it had made her look at the world in all its forms. Obviously, some things didn't change, like the feelings she shared about the idiot opposite her. She looked around at everybody. They were all writing quickly and crossing bits out, very keen on reading the best piece they could write to the rest of the club. Hermione looked around at the beautiful lake and immediately knew what she would write. Twenty minutes of writing and scribbling passed and everybody was sitting on the rocks beside the lake.

"So who wants to go first?" Luna asked enthusiastically. Nobody put their arm up due to nervousness. "Okay, Hermione since this is _your _club, remember, you can start."

"What me?" Hermione replied nervously, then looked at everybody else's reluctant faces and went and stood in front of the whole group. "Okay. My topic is love and…well...its mostly in 10 and 11 syllables, apart from the rhyming couplet-"

"I had that for breakfast yesterday!," Crabbe exclaimed.

"Okay…well…good for you…here it is:

Love is indubitably everything,

Every colour, every scent and every touch ,

The birth of beauty with the birth of spring,

No other feeling could baffle us as much.

Love resembles a beautiful still lake,

One drop could satisfy the world's endless thirst,

It opens your heart and soul wide awake,

But in their eyes you're the one who comes first.

Like a flame from a candle just been lit,

Don't fall in love…rise in it."

Hermione looked up and the group before her clapped bewildered at such a powerful poem. She hadn't thought it was very good because she had only thought of it in the last 5 minutes when she had a sudden burst of inspiration.

"Yay go Hermione!" Draco shouted a bit too suspiciously, because when Hermione went to sit down she looked rather apprehensively in his direction.

"Ooo, can I have a go now!" Crabbe asked, then wobbled to where Hermione had stood first. "I thought the poem bit was hard at first but trust me it's really good!" Draco rolled his eyes, knowing what was coming would be worse now that Crabbe actually _liked_ his poem. Crabbe continued, "Oki, so like, I'll start now. My topic was cowaaard:

I love to eat all kinds of meat,

And smell my kinda smelly feet,

But I really like to eat a bit of a cow,

So give me some right now.

I'd eat a cow-herd if you gave it to me

And…I like trees."

The poetry club sat there astounded. Most of them were thinking how he hadn't been taken into St. Mungo's for being dangerously dim. Confused that nobody had been blown away by his 'brilliant' poem Crabbe crudely plopped his buttocks on the grass, in front of Blaise, whose view was now blocked. The next person to read their poem was Hannah, Ron's girlfriend.

"Hi, my poem topic is opposites …" Hannah started. Draco tilted his head to look at Hermione, his victim. How was he going to win the bet? She probably hated him more then before and now he had even lost his lucky ring. He looked back up as Hannah said the last lines of her poem:_  
"__Without despair there is no hope,_

_Without fear you can't be brave, _

_Without hate there can be no love.__"_

Everybody clapped excitedly as Hannah went to sit down. Next up was Draco.

"Hey everyone, I got the glorious topic of death so..cool," Draco looked down at his parchment and could feel the eyes on him, weighing him down. He wrapped it up and stuck it in his robe pocket, knowing what he was going to say, as he couldn't possible say what he wrote, "Mines pretty quick, so here you go:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I'm going to die one day,

And so are you."

He grinned at the other members of the poetry club who were either annoyed that he hadn't put enough effort into his poem or terrified that the Giant Squid was going to jump out and kill them. Hermione was among those who were miffed off with Draco and was about to lecture him about respecting others when one of the 'squid phobic' students accidentally crashed their bag into Hermione's legs as they got up.

SPLASH

She struggled to move as the icy water of the lake paralysed the top half of her body. She tried swimming one way but a force was pulling her away from land. She tried swimming the other way but kept on being pushed down by an equally strong force. She didn't even have her wand in her possession because she had left it in her school bag. She could just about see Luna and Claire panicking to think of a way to get her out. In another hour she would probably be in the hospital wing, forbidden from doing her homework. Great. Suddenly, she heard a muffled sound from somewhere on her right and turned to see what it was. If it was some kind of creature living in the lake she wouldn't know what to do without her wand.

Two hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her to swim in the direction of the land. She could hardly breathe and was worn out even though they were nowhere near land. Hermione had hardly ever been particularly athletic and she felt like giving in to the force that was inviting her into the lake.

Finally, she reached land and just collapsed for a few minutes on the soft, dry, grass. All the pain she had felt had vanished and after a few more minutes she finally had her breathe back. Therefore, she sat up and looked at the others who were all around her ensuring she was well. However, as she looked past these people there was one person who was taking slime out of his shoes and he was much wetter then anybody else…Draco?

End Note

That was…predictable. But then again my whole story is predictable! There's no special features for those who read them in this chappie (which is like 0.000001 of you). I just wanted this out for Valentine's Day. Next weeks my holiday so I'll probably have a chapter up for then. Ooo and could you guys let me know if you think my story is going downhill plotwise because I would love to know. Okay thanks! Happy Valentine's Day.


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